Quick Answers / 'Newbie' Questions

[Velma]

I am wondering what I'm doing wrong - I've completed the challenge to unlock The new Russian and Chinese leaders. My achievements page shows that I have not completed these achievements. I'm logged into Game Center. Any ideas of what else I may try?

 

[Sauron 3]

1.How to count the naval support of ships? Attack value goes during the support while attacking and defense value during the defending?
2.+1 naval combat increases only attack or defend also? It's counted only for the sea battles or during the naval support also?
3.When rival's capital or other city is capturated, which of the technolgy and amount of gold one's obtaines?
4.Spanish gold exploaration is only for discovered plains, forrests or barbarian villages too?
5.Would I receive +2 Napoleon's benefit for cannons if upgraded such unit type them to artillery?
6.How German Automatic tech upgrades for Elite units works?
7.By the way, after 3 wins unit(s) becomes veteran(+50% for A+D) and after six wins - elite and every 3 victories adding one more elite status/skill?

 

[ArchGhost]

1.How to count the naval support of ships? Attack value goes during the support while attacking and defense value during the defending?
2.+1 naval combat increases only attack or defend also? It's counted only for the sea battles or during the naval support also?
3.When rival's capital or other city is capturated, which of the technolgy and amount of gold one's obtaines?
4.Spanish gold exploaration is only for discovered plains, forrests or barbarian villages too?
5.Would I receive +2 Napoleon's benefit for cannons if upgraded such unit type them to artillery?
6.How German Automatic tech upgrades for Elite units works?
7.By the way, after 3 wins unit(s) becomes veteran(+50% for A+D) and after six wins - elite and every 3 victories adding one more elite status/skill?

1.) It's always calculated as half of the ship/fleet's attack value, rounded down to the nearest whole number. So a battleship fleet, that attacks at 54 but defends at 81, still only gives +27 naval support. Whether the friendly unit is attacking or defending is irrelevant, the naval support value is always the same. Also note that it's calculated off the final value of the naval unit giving the support, so fleets or veteran units give more naval support, and stacking bonuses like Spain/England's special era bonus with Samurai Castle's greatly improves the naval support of a veteran fleet of high attack boats like cruisers or battleships. Indeed, one of the potent strategies involving Spain exploits the significant amount of early game naval support that a fleet of veteran Galleons can give after they get their 5 tech bonus.

2.) Naval combat bonuses that the Spanish and English get count as a static +1 to the base power of the unit. This means it counts towards BOTH attack and defense, gets tripled in a fleet, and multiplied by the Veteran promotion. It does not directly increase naval support itself but the increase in the attack of the unit does so indirectly. As the bonus is quite small, you will only see a positive gain in naval support if you make a fleet so the bonus adds at least +3 to attack, which nets +1 naval support (3/2 = 1.5, rounded down).

3.) I'm not sure what determines these factors directly. You will tend to get the highest tech they have (Such as Code of Laws or Monarchy if you conquer Rome or England early) but it is possible to get a lower one and commonly none at all. You also will not get any tech you already have and the AI has to have it researched (so no freebie techs at random just for conquering, they must have the tech). As for gold that's fairly straightforward: you get larger amounts if they have more in their treasury, which you can see easily by capping cities in the scenario It's the Money That Matters, where everybody starts with 1000g.

4.) Only for named tiles you uncover (El Dorado Plain, Gibraltar Sea, etc.) when you move through them. It affects nothing else

5.) No, When the civ era bonuses mention specific units as opposed to a unit type in general, they mean only those units exactly. Only Cannons get the +2 attack bonus for Napoleon. Japan only gets +1 attack to Knights, not horsemen and not tanks, etc.

6.) The unit must be elite, meaning it has one of the promotions after Veteran. It only needs one Elite promotion, more does not matter. When you research the next technology in that unit type's tier, all of the elite units you have of the previous tier will automatically and instantly upgrade to the new unit. It only works at the EXACT MOMENT you finish the technology, so you cannot elite some units later and expect them to upgrade, and you cannot skip unit tiers. So if you have a whole bunch of Elite Legions sitting around waiting to upgrade but skip Feudalism and get Combustion first, they won't upgrade into Tanks, and even if you pick up Feudalism later, they will only upgrade to Knights because you missed the boat on Combustion, so to speak. The best way to leverage this ability is with a city that has a Barracks+Great General settled so you can produce Elite units at any time, or spam Warriors in the early stages out of cities with just a Barracks (German Warriors created with a Barracks start as Elite) and upgrade them all the way up, taking care to research the techs in order for each next tier.

The unit tiers are as follows:
Warrior (no tech) >>> Legion (Iron Working) >>> Knight (Feudalism) >>> Tank (Combustion). Horsemen are kind of the odd man out, Warriors do not upgrade to them and they do not upgrade to Legions, but Knights instead.

Archer (Bronze Working) >>> Pikeman (Democracy) >>> Rifleman (Gunpowder) >>> Modern Infantry (Mass Production)

Catapult (Mathematics) >>> Cannon (Metellurgy) >>> Artilliery (Automobile)

Naval units cannot upgrade this way for the Germans as they cannot become Elite, only Veteran. For the sake of completion, they can be upgraded with Leonardo's Workshop in a similar fashion, in which case the tiers are:
Galley (no tech) >>> Galleon (Navigation) >>> Cruiser (Steam Power).
Nothing upgrades into Battleships or Submarines, and Galleys upgrade directly into Cruisers if you already have Navigation and Steam Power when you build Leonardo's Workshop, as it upgrades units to the highest tier that you have completed all the lower tier techs for.

7.) Yes, this is the way it is supposed to work except for naval units, which can only become Veteran by being produced in a city with a Barracks. YOu can obtain every promotion on a single unit if you fight enough, but only the ones appropriate to the unit's type: attack or defense. Attacking units cannot get the defensive upgrades, namely Leadership, Loyalty and Engineer. Defense units cannot earn Blitz or Infiltration or Guerrilla, etc. Warriors count as an attacking unit for the purposes of promotions, but they can erect fortifications (indicating they are a defensive unit as well, oddly).

Note though that this is buggy and a lot of times you'll notice that your units stop earning promotions before they have the whole set. It's especially egregious when you're trying to earn a complementary set of promotions like Blitz+Infiltration on an attacking unit and it just stops getting promotions altogether. The only way I've seen to fix this (sometimes) is win a fight by being attacked by an enemy unit, which will then award the next promotion while showing you that it was tracking the number of combats all along!

 

[Irgy]

Is there a way to turn off auto-end-turn?

Is there even an options menu at all?

How do you cancel movement orders?

Is there any way to make a unit wait for this turn but still activate next turn?

I ask these questions because of what just happened in my first game. I ordered my catapult to move to another city, but it was out of movement. I couldn't work out how to cancel. Then next turn an enemy unit blocks the road, my catapult walks into the forest before I can stop it. I move my galley elsewhere and suddenly my turn ends before I get a chance to order and rearrange my fortified troops. I end up losing half my cities in one turn and rage quit.

 

[ArchGhost]

There is no auto end turn, it's a bug involving units queuing for orders. There are a couple ways it triggers, mostly, giving wait commands (B or Circle) to untis that ask for orders first on a turn too quickly somehow acts as if you were mashing B, which is of course the end turn button. The other way is if you have multiple units queued to move and none asking for orders at the start of a turn, it will occasionally end the turn without your input and you can sometimes see the same thing happen when loading a saved game with units queued to moved. These are unfortunate bugs but you can minimize the problems by constantly flashing the advisor menu (hold right trigger) and the turn cannot end while you have it up. You can also do a little trick to prevent turn skipping by ending the turn with B/Circle, wait for the little "thinking" gears to pop up and then hold right trigger -- the turn will definitely not skip if you do this. It is not necessary to do this every turn unless you're paranoid, but a habit of flashing the menu to hold turns acts as a last ditch confirmation before you really end turn and is not a bad thing to learn.

There is an options menu, however the only thing it affects are various sound volumes. All gameplay changes are selected before the game starts (difficulty, scenario, map etc.)

To cancel a unit's movement orders, select the unit (ideally before it moves) with the selection button (A on Xbox, X on PS3) . It should automatically wake and ask for new orders so long as it hasn't moved yet, and if it has moved already, the queued orders will cancel and it will ask at the start of next turn even if it doesn't appear to do anything. If you hover over a unit with the cursor and it says "Cancel Orders" it still has a queued action even if you can't see the waypoints.

To make a unit awake next turn for orders, make sure it has no movement queued, select it to activate it (A/X) and press the end turn button (B or Circle) which gives the "Wait" command. Be careful not to spam the button for previously mentioned reasons. If the unit still has movement points for the turn you can wake it and assign it new order indefinitely. Units under "Wait" ask for orders next turn.


A good habit to practice is avoiding use of long movement paths for land units at all. Instead, only move them as far as they can in one turn each time. This is more tedious, but as you've experienced first hand units are pretty dumb at pathfinding, and when they get blocked they don't ask for new orders if they have a movement queued. This also allows you to always have movement points ready to change your plan for the unit if you need to as it travels. The latter point is invaluable to responding to enemy movement, whether it's barbarians chasing a settler you've moved out or enemy tanks counter attacking, changing your plan dynamically is very necessary sometimes. It's not as big a deal for boats except for galleys, which are quite limited in their movement paths along shorelines.

 

[OKdrummer87]

I have been playing CivRev2 for a little over a week now and while I have learned a lot from these forums I still feel lost most of the game. One question I have is armies. Sometimes when I have multiple cannons on a tile it will let me create a veteran unit (at least thats what I think it is) with them, but other times it doesn't let me. Can you create an army with any unit?

 

[Robo-Star]

I have been playing CivRev2 for a little over a week now and while I have learned a lot from these forums I still feel lost most of the game. One question I have is armies. Sometimes when I have multiple cannons on a tile it will let me create a veteran unit (at least thats what I think it is) with them, but other times it doesn't let me. Can you create an army with any unit?

Any 3 units of 1 type.

 

[OKdrummer87]

What strategies do ya'll use when settling a city? I have been trying to settle on hills or forests to get the attack/defense bonus. But what about resources? Is there a ratio that you try to maintain?

 

[ArchGhost]

I'm not 100% on what Civ Rev 2 since the first game changed other than certain leaders and obviously the control interface, but to the best of my knowledge the games are mechanically the same so this should still apply regardless.

Defensive positioning for cities rarely factors. I hardly even build units outside of an initial 3-6 warriors for exploring/taking huts until Tanks in most of my Deity games, unless I specifically plan on horserushing. It's also important to note that defensive units (warriors included) that defend outside cities eventually erect fortifications after 3 turns, which is the same as the Wall bonus, and you don't have to build it, so it's actually better to claim any important defensive tiles if you ever really needed to (you don't) with units instead. It's far more important to spend as much hammers/gold on settlers for more cities as you can than anything else, until you have enough for a decent trade influx. More cities is more science = earlier techs = more 1st research bonuses, more cities is more gold = more unit rushing for any purpose such as more expansion, attacking with a rush, emergency defense, etc. The fact that AIs are quite timid and cannot walk through borders or your units is more than enough buffer to buy you time to do everything you need to do to secure victory in the first 25-40 turns of any game on Deity. If you get aggressive with horses, it can be even faster; the game could be over by turn 40 with a successful horse rush, earlier if you find all your opponents fast and mobilize quickly. But if you are fast enough with getting simple warrior units out and cities settled, you can just gimp them by containing them and not allowing them to explore or expand anywhere in any game (except on isolated island starts).

The most important consideration for any city settling location is that it can work at least 2 water tiles at the bare minimum, or the equivalent (such as desert for egypt, spice desert tile + regular desert tile for anybody, etc.). A city that works at least 4 trade always pays for itself in terms of turns required to build a settler out of a two tree city, or to grow to the next size by working less water. Water tiles are everywhere and provide 2 trade each, and every city starts off at at least 2 pop, so simply 2 water tiles = good enough. The reason such a minimal approach works is because there is no detriment whatsoever to having as many cities as possible in Civ Rev, in fact you want more at all times because more cities = more everything, and when you have as many cities on the map as you can fit, as close as only 2 tiles away from each other, working only 2 water each is plenty. When you have 15 or 20 cities by 1000AD working 2 water or more each, that's at least 60-80 raw science coming through a turn by doing nothing more than expanding. And it can easily be much more than that if you can get cities to grow with a resource, earn the first research bonuses for Literacy and University, are in Democracy, and continue to settle cities in later eras where they start with more population to begin with. You never even have to bother with buildings, they'll only slow your expansion and research rate unless you're already working all available trade tiles.

If the city can also grow, great! I always make a habit of trying to settle any city I can with at least one 2 food tile (grassland, or something like a fish tile) along with the 2+ water tiles (or equivalent). Having the city work just this single +2 food tile will have it steadily grow if it has more than 2 water tiles to work, and slightly bigger cities are also nice for settler rushing. It is never strictly necessary to grow except in very specific circumstances though, and mathematically it's exactly the same to just keep working water tiles and never grow in a typical spot (your capitol and other, better settled spots can pump settlers for you, or you can simply gold rush them), so it's not really something that should be done unless you have access to a food resource to grow faster than the normal rate (Cattle, Wheat) or while you tech at the same time (fish/whale). Obviously this makes Japan's bonus very appealing, but it's not THAT powerful in the long run if you mass expand everywhere with any other civ.

Other spots to consider are "settler farm" spots. These city locations have at least 2 trees and either one or two +2 food tiles (typically a grassland). These cities don't need to have access to trade necessary: all they do is grow to settler building size (3 normally, 2 with Code of Laws which you should ALWAYS beeline for unless horserushing) and crank a settler, then regrow and repeat until all spots are settled. These "settler farms" are not strictly necessary (gold rushing settlers is always the first option, and any city can eventually slow build a settler if it can grow at all) and are only a priority if you can't get the gold to kick off expansion quickly; it's always better to settle more 2-water-tile spots. But they do help you constantly pump settlers, especially if you have a lot of terrain or multiple directions to settle in. If you have room for say, 20-30 cities up and down your coasts, it can help to have 1 or 2 inland settler farms doing nothing but pumping them to help speed it up.

If you are going for a horseman rush, the only real consideration is that any further cities you settle have at least two trees; if they also have access to water so the backwater cities can work gold for your more enemy-proximate cities to get their horses out faster, that's great too, since such an attack is an ongoing thing and anything you can do to eliminate turns, whether putting together horsemen armies faster with some gold to rush or saving on travel time to the enemy, significantly improves its success rate. The capitol's starting location will always have 2 trees, 2 grassland, and 2 water, which is enough to get you HBR and your first couple horses, but you'll want at least 1, preferably 2 more cities for an effective rush that can end the game.

Resources are usually not a big consideration unless they are unlockable quite early in the game and help either tech or growth.. Fish is always good for instance, as it does both and is only at Bronze Working. Whale is also very good, simply because of how powerful it is in growing cities that have multiple water tiles to work in a very short time, and Navigation isn't out of the question to take after CoL is done. Whale is even better for the Spanish since they can use it immediately. Dye is good to look for if you play England to get it immediately; otherwise it just comes in time eventually to increase your science income later and often improves island cities. Spice is good for anybody as it gives you a tile 50% better than a water tile and require no tech. Outlier resources are Cattle and Oxen: you'll unlock cattle anyway in a typical CoL beeline game, and it does give a lot of food on one tile for fast growth, but it needs to be near water tiles for this to really matter. Oxen (unlocked by Horseback Riding) is great for settler farms, as it allows growth and storing hammers at the same time for a very quick to unlock tech which you might open with anyway in more aggressive games or on more isolated starts. The rest are not really worth bothering with as you should be well on your way down the line into mass city expansion by the time you get the techs to unlock them.

One last consideration for a city, just a personal one for me, is to look for at least one (multiple would be better, but rare on typical maps and it takes a tone of gold if rush building infrastructure for multiple cities) spot with a decent amount of total food tiles (at least +10 overall) and then as many mountain tiles, hill tiles, and tree tiles, in that order of preference, inside its courthouse range as possible. Resources like Iron and Oak are also welcome for this city spot, which normally don't matter. This city has one function and one only: grow as big as possible, as fast as possible to work all of its tiles, and get as much production as it can with the help of an Iron Mine, Workshop (if applicable) and Factory. A spot like this can easily get 50-60 hammers a turn, and if it has many mountains, as much as around 75-100, even 150+ in some cases. Aqueduct and a settled Great Humanitarian helps too, as well as a Granary if it has any plains tiles to work. Once it grows up to the point it can work all its hammer tiles and all of that is in place (which will take a significant chunk of the game), its one mission is to crank wonders in a few turns each: priority on East India Company (for the massive boost to coastal trade), Oxford University (mostly to deny the AI a quick path to Flight, which obsoletes EIC, but also can be used to grab Industrialization or Advanced Flight if you want) and Leonardo's Workshop (to turn your warriors into Knights/Tanks and your galleys/galleons into cruisers). This city type is entirely superfluous and will require either a long time to self-build its improvements while growing, or a ton of gold to rush them, but it's fun to do and is one of the best ways to go for a later cultural victory by snapping up all the remaining wonders for milestones. I usually get this city up and running by the time I get the +5 gold per city from Industrialization's 1st research bonus, and by that point I'm usually done with most continental expansion and just running settlers to island cities, so I have the gold to spare to rush its infrastructure and start on wonders.

 

[Sauron 3]

Which languages are included in for X-Box 360 version of the game?

 

[vorlon_mi]

I've got an Android tablet (no console), and am thinking about getting CivRev2 on my tablet. Are there any tips or guides for the non-console versions here on CivFanatics?

 

[afal]

Playing CivRev2 on iOS. I am facing an issue where I don't always get the bonus for first research. Not sure if this is a bug or intended feature. It seem to happen at random for some of the techs and not all of them. For example, I would research Navigation and the advisor would declare we are the first to research Navigation, but doesn't say I get a galleon, and I don't see a galleon anywhere.

Last games I noticed this I was playing deity with Germany and Russia.

I know this is an old game but hoping if anyone had any insight on this.