Quick Answers / 'Newbie' Questions

[shadowplay]

How do I turn off the governor in my capital? I want to be prompted when something has been built, instead he just picks the next build item. I've set it not to do this in the governor's screen, so I'm not really sure why it's still happening.

 

[Vuldacon]

In your Cities, If you select a Unit to Build and then go to Menu/ Preferences and select "Always Build Previously Built Unit", the Advisor will tell you what has been built and show that the same unit is being built again. When that happens, you have the Option to go to the City and change what is being built.

 

[Lanzelot]

There is also an option in the Preferences tab that says "Ask for build orders after unit construction", which you want to have activated:

 

[UltimaPlayer12]

Is it a good idea to fortify units on your city, or should you keep them spread about the territory? I find myself always having stacks of units that I'm not quite sure what to do with when I'm not at war.

 

[Lanzelot]

Depends on your current government. In a government with "military police" (Monarchy, Communism etc.) it makes sense to keep the units in the cities to benefit from the extra happiness. However, I'm usually playing under Republic (which means no military police), so I keep my units where I expect an attack (or am preparing for the next war). Once I have railways and have a RoP with another nation, I keep a strong defender in every city to avoid unpleasant sneak attacks... (Or I block the entire border, in which case I can safely keep my cities empty.)

 

[Sarin]

A few questions from total newbie in Civ3.

What is a good start? I am a bit puzzled, as AI seems to outpace me in growth in early game even on Warlord difficulty. When's a best time to start building settlers and workers? My initial build order is several warriors, then granary once pottery, then temple and then settler...should I start popping settlers earlier?

How difficult is it to play without access to iron? I just started a game, got absolutely perfect capital (on turn one!) with two sugar, incense, two fish and horses, but no iron anywhere in the area where I wanted to settle first ~8 cities.

Edit: one more thing. Founding cities, should I go for really "paving" the continent with the grid, or should I go for more loose layout based on terrain to make most of each city?

 

[r16]

not an expert but one warrior to explore , maybe one more to keep guard , one settler to give you another city . So that you can specialize ; with the second producing workers and settlers while your capital does the barracks or goes to wonders . ı would say early on horses are just as important as iron if not more .

 

[tjs282]

What is a good start?

The only thing I really want to have on or near my start point is a source of freshwater: preferably a river long enough that I can plant a town or two up/downstream from my capital. A food-bonus tile(s) such as Wheat or Cattle is always nice as well, but not essential, especially not at Warlord, where the AI-Civs all get a handicap (growth/ production/ research costs them 20% more food/ shields/ beakers than it costs you).

ı would say early on horses are just as important as iron if not more .

I agree. In the Ancient Age, Iron is only really essential if your Civ's unique unit requires it (i.e. only if you're playing as the Romans, Celts, or Persians), because if you can't build your UU you'll have to build 1-2 Great Wonders to trigger your Golden Age. In the Middle Age, though, Iron becomes a lot more urgent a requirement, because the strongest early-age attackers all use it, and Feudalism + Chivalry are generally prioritised by the AI-civs, so if you don't have Iron (or Invention) by that point (and aren't playing as India!), you're going to be stuck with Spears, Archers, and Catapults/Trebs, to fight off the incoming (mostly A=4) units. And of course in the Industrial Age, Iron is essential: you can't build Factories without it (but if you've made it to the Industrial, then you probably got big enough to have some Iron somewhere on your territory anyway).

Walls'o'Text Spoiler'd to reduce clutter...

Spoiler Regarding buildings :

In the early game, it's much better to prioritise units. Most buildings have relatively high shield-costs (relative to what a small Despotic town will be bringing in), and also cost maintenance (gold) on every subsequent turn; whereas units are cheaper and don't cost maintenance until you exceed your 'free-unit allowance'. Under Despotism, you get 4 free units per town, so the more towns you have, the larger a military you can support cost-free (although your free-unit allowance can/will change abruptly when you switch governments, so be careful). Also, the AI rates your military according to total strength (valuing attack 1.5* more than defence), so if you're concentrating on buildings rather than units, it will be more likely to attack you.

My newly planted Ancient-Age towns usually get a Warrior to guard them, a Worker to improve them (in a 'core' town making at least 2 food and 2 shields per turn, you can usually build one of each during the first growth cycle), and then maybe start on a building -- but more likely more Warriors, or Archers, or Chariots -- or another Settler (or Worker) if the town is about to grow unhappy from 'overpopulation'. While there is still land to grab, a Settler is likely a much better investment of shields than a Granary, which itself would be a much better choice than a Temple.

Speaking of Granaries... well, if you've managed to find a town site(s) with 2-3 high food-bonus tiles (and freshwater), it might be worth putting up a Gran in there, and using that town(s) exclusively as a "Settler-/Worker-pump", peeling off the 'excess' population and then regrowing fast. But putting a Gran in every town is a poor use of limited shields, especially in the early game -- after all, you can build 2 Settlers (i.e. plant 2 more towns) for the shield-cost of 1 Granary.

Useful buildings? Barracks, once you have the shield-output to get them up quickly: build them especially in shield-rich towns, where you'll later be building your more expensive units, so that they start out as Veterans. Courthouses are also important, in towns that are further away from your Capital than your 'first ring'. And of course, Aqueducts will (eventually) be needed in any towns that have no freshwater-access.

As for Temples... well, there's a great quote from CFC-member @Bede that always gets pulled out for questions like this:

Temples...temples...priests are prevaricating parasites who pillage the body politic.

You want culture, build libraries. You get something back from the investment.

You want content citizens, build marketplaces, trade for luxuries, build towns for luxuries, build colonies for luxuries.

If happiness is a problem in a settler or worker farm, it is a self-limiting problem. Raise the luxury tax, hire an MP, you only need to make the expenditure for a couple of turns. Temples are with you forever and are a permanent drag on the economy.

Unless you're going for a Cultural victory, you really don't need Temples during the early game (or even the mid-game, for the most part), and especially not at Warlord level. Cultural expansion from the Capital is taken care of by the Palace, and if you plant your towns with no more than 2-3 tiles between them, so-called Cx(x)xC placement, then those towns' borders will join up without needing to put any Culture-buildings in them, anyway. Planting a Temple on a coastal town, just to get access to a Fish or Whale? Almost always not worth it. But a Lib, if the extra coastal commerce will be converted (using the SCI%-slider) to boost the beaker-output? Yes, that's worth it.

At Warlord, you shouldn't need Temples for Happiness, either: the first 3 citizens per town are born content, and (under Despotism) a couple of military units stationed in a town will keep 2 more citizens content, so your towns can't riot until they hit Pop6 -- by which time hopefully you have also found some Luxes, and/or are close to switching to a less corrupt government form (e.g. learning Republic and then switching to it will bring in enough income to make a few people people happy using LUX%-slider spending instead).

Spoiler Regarding the AI outpacing you on growth :

The AI builds Settlers like mad while there is still colonisable space on the map -- even in towns that haven't got the population to spare (at higher levels, in the early game, you will often see AI-towns sitting at Pop2 with a full shield-box, waiting to reach Pop3 to spin off the Settler it was building). But the AI also takes 'colonisable space' to include Tundra and Desert, terrain that a smart human won't bother prioritising in the early game unless forced to. This is because the AI already 'knows' where all the resources are placed, including the ones that won't show up until (much) later. That useless tundra-town it planted for no apparent reason in 1000 BC? That will probably later -- in about 3000 years' time! -- give it access to Oil or Uranium (but still might not have grown larger than Pop2-3).

So at least in the early game, just because an AI appears to have more towns than you do, doesn't mean it has out-expanded you. Four Pop3 human towns contain more citizens -- and are hence more productive -- than ten Pop1 AI-towns. And if you use all those units you built to take those towns away from it, it will collapse fairly quickly.

Edit: one more thing. Founding cities, should I go for really "paving" the continent with the grid, or should I go for more loose layout based on terrain to make most of each city?

Don't let yourself get stuck into any rigid Settlement patterns (like the AI does!). Plant your towns to take best advantage of the terrain. A few basic pointers:

• Settle next to freshwater whenever practical (rather than 1 tile away, like the AI), so you won't need to put 100 shields into an Aqueduct to get the town past Pop6
  
• Settle on the coast (rather than 1 tile away, like the AI), to allow you to fully 'improve' the water-tiles within your town's fat cross by building a Harbour (and later -- maybe -- a Commercial Dock or Offshore Rig)
  
• Aim to plant your initial 10-15 towns to minimise their distance from the capital (and hence their corruption/wastage levels), while still allowing each town enough space to eventually reach Pop12 and have all its citizens fully employed on the surrounding land

Spoiler The last rationale :

The idea is to ensure that each minimally corrupt 'core' town has 12-14 'semi-exclusive' tiles to work, from which it can harvest 24 FPT with suitable terrain-improvements (again, Cx[x]xC placement usually allows this). This is because during the first half to two-thirds of the game, none of your cities can grow bigger than Pop12 anyway: to do so requires Free Artistry (for Shakespeare's Theatre), or Sanitation (for a Hospital), which don't arrive until the late Medieval/early Industrial. Also, neither tech is required for era-advancement (and FreeArt also needs 2 additional optional techs as prerequisites), so may represent expensive diversions of your research-budget if you're still playing catch-up at that point (which is admittedly less likely at Warlord, but still...).

Point is, prior to San, the most efficient way to use the land under your control is to plant your towns (much) closer together than the AI does (it prefers Cxx(x[x])xC, as if each of its towns are going to work 18-20 tiles from Day 1). Once you can build Hospitals, you might then want to consider (Worker- or Settler-)disbanding half your innermost towns, to give the remainder enough space to grow to Pop20+ -- but this would require you to plan your town-placement and improvement program ahead of time, and e.g. not build your (Small) Wonders in towns scheduled for later removal. Then again, it should also be noted that two Pop10-12 cities are a lot easier/cheaper to keep happy (using Markets+Luxes, and LUX%-spending) than one Pop22 metropolis (which will likely also require a Temple, a Cathedral, a Colosseum)...

 

[Sarin]

I see...though about the cities, I actually meant even looser placement...like CxxxC, or even some gaps when ideal placement for town favours it.

A few more...what are rules for city tile production? Is it better to go for hills for defense, or high production tile?

And how the hell you keep the order in your cities. I see advice like "temples aren't necessary", but I struggle with order without them, and that is with 1-2 luxuries, 20% lux spending and one garrissoning unit.

 

[tjs282]

I see...though about the cities, I actually meant even looser placement...like CxxxC, or even some gaps when ideal placement for town favours it.

Well obviously you'll be constrained by the geography to some extent, and need to make allowances accordingly, e.g. there's little point planting a 'core' city in an area where it will never be able to harvest enough food to grow to Pop12 (ideally) -- either because the surrounding terrain can't be made more fertile, or because the new city would be crowding other (less corrupt) cities which need that food themselves. In such cases, looser placement would certainly make more sense.

But bear in mind that the 'Cx(x)(x)xC' symbology takes no account of the relative placement of the towns on a 2-dimensional map. For example, comparing 'straight' CxxxC placement on the diagonal axis with 'straight' CxxC on the horizontal/vertical axis, 'distance' (for corruption-calculation purposes) between the 2 pairs of cities is the same (= 4[.5]), but the 'tighter' placement would actually leave each city more exclusive tiles, while still being more easily defensible (because foot-units only need 1 turn to move along roads between towns).

A few more...what are rules for city tile production?

For most Civs, the town-tile itself will produce at least 2 food and 1 shield (at Pop1-6), regardless of what the underlying terrain would produce on its own. Commerce from the town-tile will depend on several factors: e.g. current government, whether the town is on a river, whether the Civ is Commercial (or Seafaring, for coastal towns), whether the tile contains a commerce-bonus (such as a Strategic or Luxury resource), etc. Also:

• Agricultural Civs get 3 food in town-tiles adjacent to freshwater until they leave Despotism (afterwards, they get 3 food from every town-tile)
• If the base-terrain gives 1 shield prior to settlement/improvement, the town-tile will give a second shield at Pop7+ (you shouldn't settle on food-bonus tiles if you can avoid it, though, because the town will not get that extra food back)
• Under despotism, all tile-outputs >2 are penalised by -1, and this includes the town-tile

Is it better to go for hills for defense, or high production tile?

It ... depends.

'Growth is king' in Civ, so food-production capacity should take precedence over just about every other consideration. As I said above, all core towns should ideally be able to reach Pop12 and 24 food per turn by the mid-game, with all citizens working tiles, so for any potential city-site, you should also consider what terrain-improvements would be possible/ needed to reach that goal. Once growth/food is taken care of, production is the next priority. So if there were lots of flatland tiles but not many Hills in the area where I want a town, then I'd found on the flatland and mine the Hills; but if there were more Hills but not so much flatland, then I'd found on a Hill.

Conversely, the underlying terrain's defensive-bonus is a distant third (or even fourth) priority when choosing a potential town-site, since many other factors also give such bonuses -- Walls, city-size, unit-fortification, whether the attacker has to cross a river, etc. (And anyway, you shouldn't be 'planning' on having your towns being attacked!) So I generally wouldn't found a town on a Hill just for the defense-factor if there was a 'better' site in the area where I wanted a town, which left the Hill available for mining.

And how the hell you keep the order in your cities. I see advice like "temples aren't necessary", but I struggle with order without them, and that is with 1-2 luxuries, 20% lux spending and one garrissoning unit.

Well that's weird: at Warlord, even under Despotism, those conditions should be good for core cities up to Pop7-8 (although 2 garrisons would be even better). It's not necessary for every single one of your citizens to be happy: in the early game, that's probably not even possible, especially as you go up the difficulty levels. All you need to do to prevent a riot is to ensure that a town's happy citizens balance/outnumber the unhappy ones.

However, there are so many factors involved here that the best thing might be for you to post a savegame and/or screenshot of your current empire, and let the real experts (not me!) have a look at it. Because just saying 'I'm having difficulty keeping order' tells us very little about how you're actually playing, what stage of the game it starts getting difficult, etc. I mean, I can post a checklist, but I'm not sure how helpful it would be:

Spoiler General stuff you should be doing in most games :

• Increase commerce output (and hence LUX%-output)
  • Prioritise settling/improving riverside sites
  • Build roads on all worked tiles
  • Build Courthouses to reduce corruption
  • Build your FP to reduce the number of excessively corrupted towns
• Make contacts with other Civs as early as possible
  • Trade your excess Luxes (and Resources) for the Luxes you haven't got
  • Use the AI-Civs' gold to pay for your town- and unit-maintenance
• Switch to a less corrupt government as soon as practical
  • Republic gives more base-commerce, has war-weariness
  • Monarchy allows military police, no war-weariness
• Build Markets to boost Lux-happiness
• Convert unhappy citizens to content/happy ones
  • Build Settlers/Workers out of unhappy towns
  • Use excess food to support Specialists (preferably Taxmen or Scientists)
• Keep 'hot' wars short -- especially under Republic
• etc.

 

[CKS]

Tjs282 gave lots of good advice. I just have a couple of other comments.

Build settlers and workers sooner and often. With a high food start, you might have as your first builds warrior, warrior, settler out of your first town. You need lots of workers to build the roads, mine, and irrigate to make your citizens productive.

Put your cities close together. Don't leave gaps, except for very temporary ones, or you'll let the AI in to settle in your land. (Or give the enemy places where they can move quickly to attack your towns.)

If your towns can't keep from rioting with a few luxuries and MPs, they are too big. Build settlers to build more towns. If you are playing 20k, you need a big city, and you just have to live with running the lux slider up to 50% sometimes.

Iron isn't a big deal until steam power, but you have to play the middle ages differently without iron than with it. However, if you've explored well, you can usually find some iron either available for trade, available to settle by, or on the edge of an AI's territory that you can steal with a newly placed city. If you prepare ahead of time, you can upgrade your army quickly.

Also, you don't need to do all of these things to become better. Just a few of them will get you from warlord to monarch easily. Pick a couple of things to work on, and go from there.

 

[shawb3nder]

I have rage quit this game so many times now, this is one of the first attempts at reach out for help.
I have never played a Civ game before.
I haven't played a ton of RTS or micromanagement games.
Being that this game is long past, the words they've used are a bit confusing.

My initial question is when the game says to "work the square" what does that mean and how do I know if I'm collecting that resource or not?

 

[Sarin]

I'm thinking that I still don't prioritize settlers enough, causing my towns to pick up too much population early on. Because what usually happens is this: I pop a new city, recall an exploring warrior to provide garrisson. I'll start building granary first, because I can't really pop anything else yet...and before it's done, I get civil disorder. Or a bit later, I let the town grow a bit while building marketplace or other building...pop, here it goes again.

But then, I fall behind AI in tech very quickly....

Few more questions, yet again .

I've started a game on Chieftain to get a taste of late game. Ironically enough, this one time I got absolutely perfect start. Good capital, started alone on easily blocked off peninsula that eventually supported 16 cities, got iron, horses, saltpeter and coal easily available...pretty much heaven. And on Chieftain, boring....I got ahead way too quickly, nobody dares to attack me or even challenge me for wonders. But AI managed to sneak in a crappy town via galley, pressed between coastline and my own city (it's CxxC). So I thought, it'll flip. I quickly built up culture buildings in my city, and...even after several dozens of turns, nothing. My city produces 14 culture, his 0. I absolutely outpace him in total culture too, distance to mine and his capital is about same, ~16 tiles, and his garrisson in one crappy spearman. So why isn't it flipping?

About governments...the "worker efficiency" means just workers, or city population too?

And I wonder...when I chop down forest/jungle under some resources, do they stop giving tile yield bonuses? I think I had that happen with spices, are there any other?

Huh...didn't know about the extra shield at 7+ pop. Does the extra shield from Industrious count for that?

 

[justanick]

I'm thinking that I still don't prioritize settlers enough, causing my towns to pick up too much population early on. Because what usually happens is this: I pop a new city, recall an exploring warrior to provide garrisson. I'll start building granary first, because I can't really pop anything else yet...and before it's done, I get civil disorder.

It does depend on circumstances, but building settler before granary can make sense. One reasoning behind this is that this way luxuries are faster included into territory and hopefully into your trading network so that all cities can profit from them. In either case you need to keep your luxus slider high enough. Not doing that is a common rookie mistake.

The question settler first or granary first is actually somewhat controversial. I am a bit the minority with a slight bias for settler first.

So why isn't it flipping?

Because chances are rather low. The aggressive use of culture as you describe will almost never work. On Chieftain there is of course some chance, but donnot count on it. Conqered Cities flipping back to the original owner is much more likely, especially big metropolises.

About governments...the "worker efficiency" means just workers, or city population too?

Just workers.

And I wonder...when I chop down forest/jungle under some resources, do they stop giving tile yield bonuses? I think I had that happen with spices, are there any other?

The value of resources does not vary, you are wrong about the spices.

Huh...didn't know about the extra shield at 7+ pop. Does the extra shield from Industrious count for that?

No. Cities produce 1 extra shield. Metropolises produce 2 extra shields and 3 if you are Industrious.

 

[tjs282]

I'm thinking that I still don't prioritize settlers enough, causing my towns to pick up too much population early on.

I agree: think I'm beginning to see a pattern here...

Because what usually happens is this: I pop a new city, recall an exploring warrior to provide garrisson. I'll start building granary first, because I can't really pop anything else yet...and before it's done, I get civil disorder. Or a bit later, I let the town grow a bit while building marketplace or other building...pop, here it goes again.

As far as buildings go, you probably need to restrain yourself a little more. Especially while your (core) towns are still small, it might be helpful if you tried to apply a couple of general rules, e.g.

• Don't start any building that you can't finish within <10T, while still harvesting +2 food per turn net (i.e. a single growth-cycle for a 'standard' town). Basically, if you can't finish it faster than that, then your town probably does not need that building yet
• Restrict yourself to a maximum of 1 building in any town which is still under Pop5 (but you can start on a 2nd building if it will be finished no more than 1 turn before the town is due to get to Pop7 -- especially important if that town needs a 'Duct to get to Pop7!)

Possible exceptions to those rules might be Courthouses (in potentially productive towns on the outer fringes of your empire), or Granaries (in food-rich towns that you will use to build Settlers/Workers) -- though you may also want to consider adding a Forest-chop or two to the shield-box for those.

But then, I fall behind AI in tech very quickly....

Building more Settlers (and hence towns) and Workers (to improve those towns) would help with that...

I've started a game on Chieftain to get a taste of late game. Ironically enough, this one time I got absolutely perfect start. Good capital, started alone on easily blocked off peninsula that eventually supported 16 cities, got iron, horses, saltpeter and coal easily available...pretty much heaven. And on Chieftain, boring....I got ahead way too quickly, nobody dares to attack me or even challenge me for wonders.

This is hardly surprising. At Chieftain, the Wonders (and everything else) cost the AI-Civs double what they cost you...

But AI managed to sneak in a crappy town via galley, pressed between coastline and my own city (it's CxxC) ... So why isn't it flipping?

Similar to combat-outcomes, flipping is governed by the game's RNG, but the primary 'attack/defence' factors for flipping are the total Cultural values of the 2 civs. Culture in neighbouring cities has much less of an effect on flip-probability -- apart from by Culture-stealing tiles away from the AI-town's FatCross, which marginally increases the probability that a flip will happen in favour of the Civ with the stronger total Culture.

So unless you are packing your towns close together, and whipping/building Cultural improvements as soon as possible in every one of them, such that your total Culture outweighs the AI's by a significant amount (like, double or triple), then you shouldn't really count on flipping as a reliable means of absorbing AI towns -- any more than you should 'expect' your Warrior (A=1) to defeat an AI-Warrior (D=1) in more than 50% of combat-rounds.

Capturing towns, then turning most of those AI-citizens into maintenance-free 'Workers (Foreign)' -- and/or assimilating them -- works much better, especially at the higher levels (Monarch+) where the AI gets increasingly large discounts on all its (Cultural) building-projects.

About governments...the "worker efficiency" means just workers, or city population too?

Yes, just Workers (including Foreign Workers, although that's really only noticeable for Fascist Civs).

And I wonder...when I chop down forest/jungle under some resources, do they stop giving tile yield bonuses? I think I had that happen with spices, are there any other?

No, only the tile's base shield- and food-yields are changed by chopping (shields decrease, food usually increases; except for Forest -> Plains/Tundra); the bonus-yields from resources are unaffected. And Spices only increase a tile's commerce-output (+2) anyway. Possibly you're getting confused by the Despot-penalty?

One thing that is potentially affected by chopping, though, is the re-spawning of exhaustible Strategic Resources. For example, when the map is generated at the start of the game, Coal can be spawned in Jungle, and Oil can be spawned in Marsh. Once those tiles have been 100% cleared to (B)Grassland, new sources of Coal and Oil can no longer be 'discovered' on them (although Coal can still re-appear in Hills + Mountains, and Oil in Desert + Tundra).

My initial question is when the game says to "work the square" what does that mean and how do I know if I'm collecting that resource or not?

Hey, an easy one!

On the main map/game-screen, double-click on the city (or right-click then select 'Zoom to city' from the menu): you'll then be taken to the 'city-screen', and can see which tiles around that city are currently being worked by that town's population -- those are the tiles showing the wheat-sheaf (food), shield (raw materials) and/or coin-icons (commerce). The central city-tile is always worked, and each citizen 'population-head' in the town can work one additional tile per head (e.g. if a town contains 4 citizens, then up to a maximum of 5 tiles can be worked -- including the city-tile).

Below the city display, you can see how much of that tile-output is actually available to the town (food for growth; shields for buildings/units; gold for conversion to tax-income, beakers or happyfaces). Blue shields and gold coins are usable, red shields/coins are wasted/corrupted. Each pop-head eats 2 food per turn: crossed-out wheat-icons in the food-box means that the city is currently harvesting less total food than it needs to keep all its current citizens fed; the town will begin to starve (lose 1 citizen per turn) once its food-box is empty.

Spoiler Additional -- possibly unnecessary -- detail :

By clicking on a worked tile, you remove your citizen from the land and bring them into the city to become a 'Specialist' (default is an Entertainer, aka 'Clown' -- you can cycle through the 3-5 Specialist-types by clicking directly on the pop-head). You can keep the citizen in town if you like, but in the early game, it's best to have as many people working the land as possible: re-assign the Specialist citizen to any currently unworked tile, by clicking on that tile. As you shift your citizens around, you will see the food, shield and commerce totals change accordingly.

A quick way to reassign most/all citizens at once is to click directly on the city-tile in the city-display: this will tell the 'City Governor' to choose the tile (and Specialist) assignments, according to his standing orders (e.g. 'Emphasise production' will prioritise shield-tiles, 'Emphasise food' will prioritise food-tiles) and your current game parameters (e.g. if the town is unhappy, he will assign Clowns, if you have a high TAX%-slider setting, he will assign Scientists). While this can save you time, though, be aware that the Governor follows some hardcoded rules that over-ride everything else:

• No unhappy citizens allowed! (They will all be turned to Clowns, even if that's not necessary to prevent a riot -- and even if this results in starvation)
• If the city can grow, it must produce at least 2 food per turn net! (This may slow down the town's current building-project more than you might wish)

Also, if 2 cities (including AI-towns) are placed close enough together that their FatCrosses overlap, then some of the apparently unworked tiles on the city-display may not actually be available to that city's workers. Tiles within an AI's Cultural borders are never available to your Civ's citizens. Tiles being worked by citizens from another of your own cities are indicated by a brown border round the tile -- these can be swapped between cities, but you have to go to the other city, to take its citizen(s) off that tile(s), before you can assign the first city's citizen(s) to it/them.

 

[Sarin]

Thank you.

I've run into another thing that could use some clarification, if you don't mind. I restarted as Maya and am currently pulling off a successful jav thrower rush...which is leaving me with tons of workers. I've noticed they work rather slowly, will it improve once peace is signed, or will I have to use them up in some other way, like colonies (there are some luxuries deep in tundra that don't warrant own city) or replacing pop lost when building a settler?

And little about diplomacy. I know declaring wars and conquering causes diplomatic penalties, do they apply even for yet unmet civilizations?

 

[Samson]

Thank you.

I've run into another thing that could use some clarification, if you don't mind. I restarted as Maya and am currently pulling off a successful jav thrower rush...which is leaving me with tons of workers. I've noticed they work rather slowly, will it improve once peace is signed, or will I have to use them up in some other way, like colonies (there are some luxuries deep in tundra that don't warrant own city) or replacing pop lost when building a settler?

Captured "foreign" workers are slower, but they cost no unit maintenance, so are actually better than native workers. So it is better to keep them and use your native workers for colonies. It is generally not worth adding workers to cities, do not build a settler if you cannot easily re-grow the pop. There are exceptions to this rule.

 

[Sarin]

What...no maitenance? Didn't notice that. Makes them worth keeping around then. Actually, I think I'll use the army unit I'm making to hunt barbarians for slaves for quite some time....

 

[justanick]

Yes, just Workers (including Foreign Workers, although that's really only noticeable for Fascist Civs).

Once you have replaceable parts it is noticeable in any case as the factor 2 from replacebable parts and the divisor 2 from being foreign cancel each other out.

What...no maitenance? Didn't notice that. Makes them worth keeping around then.

That is true, but there is a catch: One native workers is as fast a 2 foreign ones. But if you add 2 foreinworkers to a city of yours the effect is the same as if you add 2 native workers. The output citizens in cities generate does not depend on nationality. But if you are at war with that civ they create dissent und not depending on war they can cause a city to flip. So that theoretical option only becomes practical once that foreign civs is eliminated.

Actually, I think I'll use the army unit I'm making to hunt barbarians for slaves for quite some time....

Now that you have that army that is of course more or less practical. But aiming this is one of the worse mistakes you can make. Barbarians only appear where there are no city. But founding city about everywhere there is place for them is one of the key priorities in this game. Also the javelins are rather expensive. This means that building them is usually not reasonably before all places for founding cities have been used.

 

[tjs282]

Now that you have that army that is of course more or less practical.

Can Javelineer Armies enslave, though? I thought I'd read somewhere that an Army composed of a single unit-type kept all that unit's abilities -- I know Berzerker-only Armies keep the Berzerker's Amphibious ability, and Conquistadore-only Armies treat all terrain as roads -- but other unit-abilities don't always seem to transfer.

e.g. In my recent attempt at the Sengoku Conquest (which was eventually successful, but slow), I built a Samurai Arquebusier-Army to cover my assault-units during the late game, and found that it did not have the Arquebusier's ability to bombard (not that this really mattered for my game -- Ninjas rule! -- but still...).