Quick Answers / 'Newbie' Questions

[dalamb]

Are you running state property? "Corporations have no effect", which I think means you can't build them, not just that they produce no income. Also I presume you haven't created any competing corporations in those cities, but thought I should mention it.

 

[jrpen45]

Hi all; jpen here. Would like to know the best way to return a city to growing when it is starving or stagnent.

 

[Darth Fred]

Hi all; jpen here. Would like to know the best way to return a city to growing when it is starving or stagnent.

Shuffle citizens. Those priests and spies (Nor any of the others) don't farm.
F

 

[Lithuanian!]

Ok, so I want to ask you some questions because I can't win this game on noble.
I'm playing with Spain on costume game.
1. What is the first 5 thigs you build in first city?
2. What is the first 5 technologies?
3. Upgrade my troops is so expensive, should I upgrade them and spend all my gold or I should ignore upgrades of units?
4. How many workers per city is best?
5. Do you tell workers what to do because I set that "automatic" thing, I never give any orders for workers. Should I?
6. There is any point to examine city?
7. How to make better relationship with other nations, without giving them everything for free?
That is all for now.

P.S.: I'm playing beyond the sword.

 

[Gwynnja]

Ok, so I want to ask you some questions because I can't win this game on noble.
I'm playing with Spain on costume game.
1. What is the first 5 thigs you build in first city?
2. What is the first 5 technologies?
3. Upgrade my troops is so expensive, should I upgrade them and spend all my gold or I should ignore upgrades of units?
4. How many workers per city is best?
5. Do you tell workers what to do because I set that "automatic" thing, I never give any orders for workers. Should I?
6. There is any point to examine city?
7. How to make better relationship with other nations, without giving them everything for free?
That is all for now.

P.S.: I'm playing beyond the sword.

1. It depends. Usually a worker or workboat as the initial build.
2. It depends on your resources. Research what your worker needs to improve immediately: agriculture, mining, animal husbandry, bronze working, and sometimes hunting and sometimes archery are important early techs.
3. It depends. Usually it's better not to upgrade them.
4. It depends. Early on a good rule of thumb is 1.5 to 2.
5. You're smarter than the AI. Don't automate, especially before you have a good grasp of the game mechanics. Civ is a very complicated game and it can take a while.
6. Yes. Again, you're smarter than the AI and can do a better job of telling which citizens what to do.
7. Give them stuff for free. Diplomacy is complicated.

Browse the war academy and search sisiutil's beginner's guide. Good luck.

 

[IAM]

Ok, so I want to ask you some questions because I can't win this game on noble.
I'm playing with Spain on costume game.
1. What is the first 5 thigs you build in first city?
2. What is the first 5 technologies?
3. Upgrade my troops is so expensive, should I upgrade them and spend all my gold or I should ignore upgrades of units?
4. How many workers per city is best?
5. Do you tell workers what to do because I set that "automatic" thing, I never give any orders for workers. Should I?
6. There is any point to examine city?
7. How to make better relationship with other nations, without giving them everything for free?
That is all for now.

P.S.: I'm playing beyond the sword.

1. Just about every city wil get a granary at some point. First ask why am I building this building? Do you need culture there? Are you producing units? etc. Buildings should match what you are doing in the city.
2. Usually techs that allow workers to work. If you have fish, crab and or clam resources then fishing should be a priority. On Noble level you can found an early relegion. Or you may want to wonder build.
3. If they have several promotions I'll upgrade. Otherwise I'll use them as cannon fodder when attacking a city or occasionally delete or use for garrison duties in interior cities.
4. 1.5 usually. Water heavy maps may need less but lots of early resources may mean you need more.
5. I only use 'automatic' workers when I get to railroads.
6. Helps you figure out what your empire is doing. Lots of useful information in there.
7. Adopt their relegion or favorite civic. Go to war with them (fighting a third party).

 

[Lithuanian!]

Ok. Thank you guys you helped me a lot

 

[papakapp]

Q's on tech trading:

First, when one nation offers you like 30 gold for biology or something, is that 30 gold actually a fair price because they almost have it researched by themselves, or are they trying to screw you? It would seem that that would be a fair price cause they already have a way programmed to screw you, so it would seem odd for the programmers to make two ways.

Second, occasionally when I push the end turn button the very first pop up is some guy that wants my shiny new tech that just popped on that very turn and I haven't even had time to decide what I want to research next. This is annoying enough, but what is reeeeally annoying is when they have a lesser tech that would not be a fair trade and they don't even offer it. Then I have to decline their first offer, and hope that the -1 modifier I just got is not enough to make them not want to trade my superior tech to their inferior one. Is there a mod that fixes that?

 

[Sidney Magal]

Q's on tech trading:

First, when one nation offers you like 30 gold for biology or something, is that 30 gold actually a fair price because they almost have it researched by themselves, or are they trying to screw you? It would seem that that would be a fair price cause they already have a way programmed to screw you, so it would seem odd for the programmers to make two ways.

Second, occasionally when I push the end turn button the very first pop up is some guy that wants my shiny new tech that just popped on that very turn and I haven't even had time to decide what I want to research next. This is annoying enough, but what is reeeeally annoying is when they have a lesser tech that would not be a fair trade and they don't even offer it. Then I have to decline their first offer, and hope that the -1 modifier I just got is not enough to make them not want to trade my superior tech to their inferior one. Is there a mod that fixes that?

Legends of Revolution lets you refuse to talk, just like the AI does.

 

[Mike96]

How I can create new unit/resources/Civs... ?

I mean how I can create new modpack myself. Is there some program what I should donload?

 

[Robo-Star]

How I can create new unit/resources/Civs... ?

I mean how I can create new modpack myself. Is there some program what I should donload?

Check-out the Civ 4 - Modding Tutorials & Reference forum.

 

[Sparrow3]

By acident, are you running State property ?

Are you running state property? "Corporations have no effect", which I think means you can't build them, not just that they produce no income. Also I presume you haven't created any competing corporations in those cities, but thought I should mention it.

Both of You are correct. I was running state property. However; I could find no reference in the Civilopedia regarding not being able to build corporations under state property.

thanks!
sparrow3

 

[Sisiutil]

Q's on tech trading:

First, when one nation offers you like 30 gold for biology or something, is that 30 gold actually a fair price because they almost have it researched by themselves, or are they trying to screw you? It would seem that that would be a fair price cause they already have a way programmed to screw you, so it would seem odd for the programmers to make two ways.

Not necessarily. The only way to know for sure is to build up enough espionage points against your rivals so you know what they're researching. Often the AI will offer you almost nothing for a very high-value tech. You should not earn any diplomatic demerits for turning them down. You may, however, earn several diplomatic credits for accepting, assuming you haven't already earned the maximum of +4 for "Our trade deals have been fair and forthright".

Second, occasionally when I push the end turn button the very first pop up is some guy that wants my shiny new tech that just popped on that very turn and I haven't even had time to decide what I want to research next. This is annoying enough, but what is reeeeally annoying is when they have a lesser tech that would not be a fair trade and they don't even offer it. Then I have to decline their first offer, and hope that the -1 modifier I just got is not enough to make them not want to trade my superior tech to their inferior one. Is there a mod that fixes that?

Again, you shouldn't earn diplomatic demerits for turning down a trade deal. You will, however, earn diplomatic demerits for refusing a "donation"--when the AI asks for something and offers nothing in return.

 

[BeXXs]

I have a few question regarding the ingame mechanics/calculations of various aspects. If they are to complicated to answer here, it would be nice if you could give me a link where i can find more infos.

1. a) How are the maintenance costs for cities calculated?
b) Regarding the maintenance costs of units: i assume that you have a certain amount of free units and that every further unit has a cost depending on its strength. Is this right? If yes, what are the number of free units and the costs of various units? If no, how are the costs calculated?

2. If you have tense borders with an AI and you hover over a border tile, you can see how much percent of this tile is yours. How is this number calculated?

3. If you build an infinite stream of a certain unit, and your base hammer output is higher than the cost of it, what happens with the overflow? Example: You have a base hammer output of 100 (unlikely, but its just an example) and build an infinte stream of chariots for 25 hammers each, you get an overflow of 75 hammers per chariot. What happens with this?

4. If you start a war with a civ (wether as the attacker or defender), it wont talk to you for a while. What factors determine how long this 'no talk'-time takes, and can you influence it?

5. This question came to my mind spontanously: if you pillage a tile with a road and an improvement, the improvement is destroyed first. Is there a way to tell your unit to destroy the road but leave the improvement untouched?

Thanks for the answers!

 

[Roland Johansen]

I have a few question regarding the ingame mechanics/calculations of various aspects. If they are to complicated to answer here, it would be nice if you could give me a link where i can find more infos.

These are all rather technical questions and over the years various people have researched these mechanics. I'll give you some links to the outcome of these inquiries, but be warned that these articles are pretty technical with lots of formulas. But how else can you describe the details of complicated mechanics.

1. a) How are the maintenance costs for cities calculated?

City maintenance cost

b) Regarding the maintenance costs of units: i assume that you have a certain amount of free units and that every further unit has a cost depending on its strength. Is this right? If yes, what are the number of free units and the costs of various units? If no, how are the costs calculated?

Unit maintenance

2. If you have tense borders with an AI and you hover over a border tile, you can see how much percent of this tile is yours. How is this number calculated?

Culture mechanics

3. If you build an infinite stream of a certain unit, and your base hammer output is higher than the cost of it, what happens with the overflow? Example: You have a base hammer output of 100 (unlikely, but its just an example) and build an infinte stream of chariots for 25 hammers each, you get an overflow of 75 hammers per chariot. What happens with this?

First it becomes overflow production. Once you get to an overflow value above the maximum (the hammers per turn of the city, the hammers needed for the last construction item), then the remainder is turned into gold.

4. If you start a war with a civ (wether as the attacker or defender), it wont talk to you for a while. What factors determine how long this 'no talk'-time takes, and can you influence it?

I think it's governed by the iRefuseToTalkWarThreshold value in the file Civilization 4\Beyond the Sword\Assets\XML\Civilizations\CIV4LeaderHeadInfos.xml file. Each leader has a different value for this variable.

5. This question came to my mind spontanously: if you pillage a tile with a road and an improvement, the improvement is destroyed first. Is there a way to tell your unit to destroy the road but leave the improvement untouched?

No, you can't do that (in the unmodded game).

 

[Gwynnja]

Assuming that random events are off and you've just gotten a chunk of gold as part of a trade. Is there any practical reason not to immediately crank up the slider to 100% for as long as the the gold lasts? It seems that the beakers will be much more useful to the empire.

 

[Alornal]

I'm experimenting with Gallic Swordsmen rushes for fun, and at the moment, I can get a fair stack going by 500BC, running RevolutionsDBM. Now that I've begun to really get it working, is there any realistic way I can use the Oracle to slingshot Vassalage to get that extra experience while building the stack, or is there really no way to make it work? I still play on Warlord as well, so its not like I'm facing too much trouble...

 

[Darth Fred]

Does anyone have any good suggestions/strategies for playing OCC games?

I'm fixing to dive into some of my first and was curious.
F

 

[Sisiutil]

Assuming that random events are off and you've just gotten a chunk of gold as part of a trade. Is there any practical reason not to immediately crank up the slider to 100% for as long as the the gold lasts? It seems that the beakers will be much more useful to the empire.

As usual, it depends. There may be another use for that gold, such as upgrading veteran units, bribing another civ, or switching into Universal Suffrage to rush-buy some units or improvements. Take stock of the situation and your plans before deciding how to use your boon.

 

[Gwynnja]

Does anyone have any good suggestions/strategies for playing OCC games?

I'm fixing to dive into some of my first and was curious.
F

There are a few strategy guides in the strategy guide sub forum. I'm not ashamed to reroll a capital site that doesn't have a ton of food or stone/marble. You want the mids for rep. Bureau ASAP. Build wonders and settle specs. You get five national wonders, I like oxford, nat epic, globe, nat park, and IW.