Quick Answers / 'Newbie' Questions

[Cicerosaurus]

Thanks for the answers. I wasn't so much forgetting bulbing or golden ages as asking which was the better of the two options I outlined. I always hesitate to use a scientist to start a golden age - I prefer to use an artist which I regard as less useful.

That is an interesting point about the length of time taken to recoup the settling of the GS. Food for thought.

 

[rogue131]

Alright, my only biggest beef has always been when playing an Earth map as England. There isn't much in the way of space there, so I rush to colonize Ireland. Still my population complains about "it's too crowded." Now Heriditary Rule and Representation do help to calm them down, but I mean I colonize the crap out of South America and they still complain. Am I not doing something right?

 

[Derakon]

"It's too crowded" is code for "we hate other people". You get 1 point of unhappiness from crowding for each point of population you have. Basically, as your city grows, you have to find more ways of adding happiness. Crowding is the one source of unhappiness you can't remove without also removing population.

 

[Darth Fred]

Alright, my only biggest beef has always been when playing an Earth map as England. There isn't much in the way of space there, so I rush to colonize Ireland. Still my population complains about "it's too crowded." Now Heriditary Rule and Representation do help to calm them down, but I mean I colonize the crap out of South America and they still complain. Am I not doing something right?

"It's too crowded" doesn't have to do so much with land mass as it does city size. You can have a continent the size of 20 Englands and your larger cities will still whine about the crowding.
F

 

[Gwynnja]

Alright, my only biggest beef has always been when playing an Earth map as England. There isn't much in the way of space there, so I rush to colonize Ireland. Still my population complains about "it's too crowded." Now Heriditary Rule and Representation do help to calm them down, but I mean I colonize the crap out of South America and they still complain. Am I not doing something right?

the "it's too crowded" gripe refers to the city itself, not the size of your empire. Short of building the Globe theater (which can only be built in one city) there is no way to eliminate that unhappiness. Focus instead on increasing happiness; there are many ways to do this, from religion, culture, resources, hereditary rule, buildings, etc.

 

[Sisiutil]

Personally, I think burning Great People for a golden age is kind of a waste, but that's just me.

As always in Civ, it depends. If you get a GP for which you have no practical use now or in the future (getting a Great Artist in your GP Farm/Great Library city from the National Epic GPP contamination is a typical example ), then burning him/her for a Golden Age is not a bad idea. However, you usually need a decent-sized empire--I'd say at least 12 cities--to get something out of it. Your cities should also be a decent size (say 8-10 pop for most) so enough tiles are worked to get the most out of the production and commerce boost. This means that a pre-Monarchy GA is almost always a non-starter because the low early happy cap will keep your cities too small to work enough tiles.

Keep in mind that Golden Ages were improved (in BtS IIRC) so that (a) a non-Spiritual leaders can change civics anarchy-free during one and (b) your Great Person points double for the duration of the GA. So, in combination with the decent-sized empire and cities, if you are looking to change several civics, using a GP for a GA can, in fact, be a very good idea. I will sometimes use a Great Scientist for this after I'm done using them for the Liberalism techs, when a GS will lightbulb either Scientific Method (which I may not be in a hurry to acquire because I own the Great Library, which SM makes obsolete) or, later still, Fusion (which, depending upon the victory you're pursuing, may be a low priority or even a wholly unnecessary tech, and one you can usually acquire from the AI).

 

[Cicerosaurus]

I never knew about the GP points doubling during a Golden Age.

Just reading what Sisiutil has stated above, is it better to delay your initial Golden Age until you have a "medium" sized empire?

 

[Sisiutil]

I never knew about the GP points doubling during a Golden Age.

Just reading what Sisiutil has stated above, is it better to delay your initial Golden Age until you have a "medium" sized empire?

Isn't that what I said? Generally, yes. Of course you can start an early GA, but you won't be getting the most bang for your buck, and then next GA will require 2 Great People (or building the Taj).

Remember that what the GA mainly gives you is +1 and +1 on every tile that has at least one. So, the more tiles you're working with at least 1 and , the better--which means at least a medium-size empire with relatively large cities. It`s also hard to leverage the GA to change civics when there are few available to change to, and hard to leverage its doubled GPP if your Great Person farm is only able to run 2 specialists.

On the other hand, suppose you manage to build or (better still) "acquire" ( )the Pyramids and/or the Shwedagon Paya. Now you have several attractive civics choices available and you can raise the cap by switching to either HR or Representation. Being able to go double-double on GPP by using Pacifism during a GA is cool too. Doing this after conquering territory would be even better because you now have that medium-sized empire. Under these circumstances, an early GA might just be justifiable.

 

[rogue131]

the "it's too crowded" gripe refers to the city itself, not the size of your empire. Short of building the Globe theater (which can only be built in one city) there is no way to eliminate that unhappiness. Focus instead on increasing happiness; there are many ways to do this, from religion, culture, resources, hereditary rule, buildings, etc.

Which I do. I always attempt to build temples, monstaries, have a state religion for a while, etc. I always rush to Liberalism too in order to snag Free Religion and Free Speech, I find that helps.

It's just a pain in the arse . I didn't know that about the GP/GA, I usually rush them for tech, culture or foreign merchant (gotta get rich!).

Is it wrong that in BTS my colonies wish to join my vassal states? I really don't want to give them up like that. I'm all for pleasing them, but I don't need my vassal becoming so large they don't need me anymore.

I also find the Globe Theater to be a VITAL build in a capital or extremely crowded city.

 

[Sisiutil]

First off, I highly recommend reading Cabert's excellent article in the War Academy, "Ways into Happiness". I rarely build the Globe Theatre, in a capital or elsewhere, and I play and usually win on Immortal level, where the default happiness level is quite low.

If your colonies want to join your vassals, then either you should not have accepted the vassal or you're placing your colonies too close to your vassals. Outside of that, you need to load up the colony cities with culture.

 

[Venereus]

Btw, WTH is the "ARGHHHHHHH!!!!" unhappiness about? (Other than a Monty Python Holy Grail reference).

 

[Ansive]

No idea
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=309863


Does anyone know what combat odds generate 2 xp instead of 1? (excluding the drill promotions).
Sometimes I have spare promotions on units that could shift the odds over 99% but I'd rather take a little risk and get 2xp instead of 1.

 

[CajNatalie]

I think the amount of experience you get is the victim's level.
Victim's Level = Experience Gained
So far as I know.

And for the ARGHHHHHHH! unhappiness, I dunno... maybe it was an event... did you have any event that required you to pay the price of unhappiness for a bonus (or for nothing...)?
Some of them I understand go down as 'cruel oppression', but not all unhappiness events involve you being cruel to your people. So the ones that don't... they're probably the ARGHHHH!s.

 

[Phaorah Faucet]

Hi,

I got Civ IV a month ago, and I tried to do two things in a game which seemed like they should be possible yet turned out otherwise;

Is it really not possible to airlift a great person? WTH!

Why can't my spy destroy the production of a SS part?

Any ideas? Thank you!

Also, I've been playing as Warlord, usually aiming for a domination victory, which I've accomplished a few times. Two times I ranked as Nero and once I ranked as Hammurabi. Why such a huge difference? Any ideas on how the game scores? All my wins took about the same time... Thank again!

 

[s.bernbaum]

In a recent game, I had a strange thing happening. I was building fighters in several high production cities with airports. They were churning them out every turn or two, with two promotions. Every now and then, each city would produce two fighters at once, one with two promotions and one with one promotion. Sometimes only one city would do this, sometimes both on the same turn. I have never seen "bonus" units tagging along with the one I was building before. Does anyone know what was going on?

 

[s.bernbaum]

Hi,

I got Civ IV a month ago, and I tried to do two things in a game which seemed like they should be possible yet turned out otherwise;

Is it really not possible to airlift a great person? WTH!

Why can't my spy destroy the production of a SS part?

Any ideas? Thank you!

Also, I've been playing as Warlord, usually aiming for a domination victory, which I've accomplished a few times. Two times I ranked as Nero and once I ranked as Hammurabi. Why such a huge difference? Any ideas on how the game scores? All my wins took about the same time... Thank again!

You can't airlift a unit on the same turn that it moved or did anything else. Only one unit can be airlifted from a city per turn. Unless the receiving city has an airport, only one unit can be airlifted into a city per turn. Perhaps one of these applies in your case. I have airlifted GPs many times, so I know it should work, provided the preceding conditions are met.

Perhaps you did not have enough espionage points against the empire in question to destroy the spaceship part in the city where your spy was located. If you consult the espionage screen, it will tell you how many espionage points you have against each of the empires. If you click on the leader, a list of cities appears. Click on each city to see how many espionage points you need to accomplish various missions in each city. If the mission shows no number of points, you don't have enough to do it in that city.

The rankings at the end of the game take into account how early you win, which type of win you get, how big your empire is, how populous it is, how rich it is, and several other things. I don't really care how it rates me, so I have never bothered paying attention to what exactly goes into it. However, if you look around in this area of the forum, you will find several threads where people go into this in great detail.

 

[City Builder]

Hi,

I'm very much a newb at Civ, and most of the time, I don't really know the consequences of my actions in the game but that's alright by me as long as I'm continuing to have a good time.

Anyway, I played my longest run through one game yesterday/today and am just sort of trying to keep everybody off my back while I build my nation to unrealistic proportions to keep out any other Civ that gets some wiseguy ideas about attacking me. Thus far it's been working, but my question is simply....

For keeping everybody happy (the other civs') is it just a matter of counting my positives and negatives with each civ? Is that a pretty much safe way of keeping them off my back or are they just going to backstab me anyway even if I have a tremendous amount of positive items listed in our relations?

For example with Boutica, I think I've got like 17 positive items listed with here and maybe 4 negative items.

I assume it also depends on what difficulty level I'm playing on as well, which I've alwasy just played on Chieftan as when I try to make the switch to the next level I just get creamed so I stay where It's comfortable and most fun for me to play, damn my friends that tell me I'm not really playing unless I'm playing at some uber difficulty level.

So, on chieftan, in this very long long game thus far, it seems to be working out just by counting the positives and negatives, I give the other civs what they want as long as it's not a tech that is military oriented and it seems most of the other civs seem happy enough with me, but at chieftan should I be watching for some signs that some other civ is about to backstab me? If I'm far enough ahead in the score on the bottom right of my screen, are other civs likely to mess with me (at chieftan level)?

I may be wasting a lot of resources or gold, but in general, if I turn down some other civs request for a tech that I really don't wish them to have at that moment, or a request for me to join their war, then I usually just give them some pittance of an item to try to keep them off my back, I don't know if I'm just wasting the stuff that I'm giving them and they don't really care on this difficulty level or if it's a viable strategy with the AI in BTS. As an example, if Boutica asked me for some tech that I don't want her to have from me, I might see what she has and if she's got no gold listed then I might throw her 100 gold as a gift. Don't know if that's just throwing it away or if the AI actually takes these gifts into account after I've refused them what they've asked for but so far nobody has tried to attack me, although I do own the most land now on the continent and am at the top of all the lists that pop up.

Thanks for indulging the newb.

 

[CajNatalie]

On Chieftain, you can have everyone at Annoyed and you're still unlikely to be attacked.
In fact, I only started giving in to demands when I reached Noble. Because at Warlord level, even though the AI's aggression was more substantial, I was too powerful for them to dare attack if they even wanted (except for maybe one failed naval assault).

Anyways, not giving in to a demand and then tossing the AI 100 gold is not going to do much if anything. A gift's value is determined by how soon since you met a civ that it was given, and how much its value is. So when you first meet a civ, 50-100 gold goes a LONG way. But later down the line, the only way to get a boost is to gift a bunch of units while the AI is at war with someone (I think there's a difference depending on their state of war) or to gift cities. Anything less and there's no difference.

However, for a one time thing... if you make a trade that is heavily weighted in the AI's favor (eg: they pay 100 gold for a 1000 science tech), then you'll get a +4 for being 'fair and forthright' in your affairs with that civ. This works once per civ.
But note that you can also get this by consistently making trades that are only slightly in the AI's favor... such as giving away more expensive techs for cheaper ones, or trading many cheap techs that come to more value than a single expensive tech you're getting in return. I'm using techs as an example, because I find that before you discover Currency and can even deals out with gold, this may happen naturally during the first tech-trading phases after Alphabet is discovered.

Lastly, it's not just about counting +'s and -'s. There are hidden modifiers out there. The first step is to see their mood with you... Furious/Annoyed/Cautious/Pleased/Friendly. The diplo required for each mood varies between AIs. The second is to see how they feel about your vassals, and then make an average. If you have no vassals, then it's pretty simple. Thirdly, check for any civs whose favorite civic is Police State. These civs are the psychos that declare war on everyone just for kicks, so if you're looking to practice for higher difficulties, remember that at these levels, having any one of the psychos at Cautious puts you in serious risk of being attacked. Then there are those civs whose favorite civic is Theocracy... if you're a different religion than they are, be prepared for a backstabbing in the same way as you would from the psychos. Finally, there's Catherine, who I've gleaned will 'prepare for war at Pleased'.

 

[City Builder]

Thanks, I'm starting to think that on the next difficulty level I probably got off to a bad starting area that was just too crammed with AI for my playing ability to gain any headway towards being powerful, so there is usually some AI that butts up against my borders that usually just steam rolls over me.

Most likely my not yet cultured Civ mind being able to fully understand what trumps what maybe and thus building the wrong type of troops maybe.

I'll have to try on the next level up again as it seems on Chieftan that instead of the AI steamrolling over me, I'd be able to steamroll over them instead, certainly the barbarians are a snap at this level even though they are annoying as all get out, when they're constantly sending their troops my way until I get up a substantial enough force to pound on their town down into submission.

Oh well, next difficulty level this afternoon I think.

 

[rogue131]

First off, I highly recommend reading Cabert's excellent article in the War Academy, "Ways into Happiness". I rarely build the Globe Theatre, in a capital or elsewhere, and I play and usually win on Immortal level, where the default happiness level is quite low.

If your colonies want to join your vassals, then either you should not have accepted the vassal or you're placing your colonies too close to your vassals. Outside of that, you need to load up the colony cities with culture.

Thanks, I'll have to check it out again. Usually I'm not close to my vassals, they typically have one city by my colonies. I don't know, perhaps one is all it needs? Load up with culture, roger that.