Quick Answers / 'Newbie' Questions

[Kirejara]

A stupid question again from me.

How is it possible for a city to have suddenly a minus of three food after it has grown.

I would understand one food missing, assuming that it had three plus food prior to growing.

And I have not change anything in the countryside in the last 100 turns (no workers have been automated). I have recently build Longevity, while I have aquired the Pyramids in South America (so they should not have an effect in Africa).

 

[tjs282]

A stupid question again from me.

How is it possible for a city to have suddenly a minus of three food after it has grown.

I would understand one food missing, assuming that it had three plus food prior to growing.

And I have not change anything in the countryside in the last 100 turns (no workers have been automated). I have recently build Longevity, while I have aquired the Pyramids in South America (so they should not have an effect in Africa).

Unless you modded it already, this GWonder gives you 2 extra citizens on growth... So going from +1FPT net to -3FPT would make sense, since your new citizens are now eating 4FPT extra.

 

[Kirejara]

Thank you!

And no, I have not changed Longevity.

But your post also explains why this problem only occured in the end of a game (even if the KI has build Longevity it would still belong to my empire... ).

Building the remaining wonders, then nothing else is left to build, can apparently backfire.

 

[hth]

How to disable a single unit fortify animation? In late game with hundreds of units this ~2 sec delay is annoying a bit.

 

[Kirejara]

How to disable a single unit fortify animation? In late game with hundreds of units this ~2 sec delay is annoying a bit.

Right mouse button and selecting "Fortify All" should do the trick.

 

[hth]

Not always suitable and kind of slow compared with single key press.

May be some animation sprites can be safely deleted?

---
Yea! Empty "<name_of_unit>Fortify.flc" does the job!

 

[tjs282]

How to disable a single unit fortify animation? In late game with hundreds of units this ~2 sec delay is annoying a bit.

Did you already try unchecking some/all of the 'Animate our ___ moves' boxes in the preferences...? Deleting actual gamefiles seems a bit... erm... drastic...

(Here's a peanut -- now, where's my ?!)

 

[Takhisis]

You can hold down LShift during the AI's turn to make things progress more quickly.

 

[hth]

Did you already try unchecking some/all of the 'Animate our ___ moves' boxes in the preferences...?

Of course I did. All animation preferences except enemy's are off, but fortifying seems to be a special case.

 

[Takhisis]

You can always remove the units themselves. Have you heard of that most subtle of tactics, called Carpet bombing?

 

[walletta]

How big must an empty area of map be to allow barbarian camps/villages to start reappearing? I had a crazy idea of leaving such a void area inside the Mayan empire and then farming slaves from it but then it occurred to me this might precipitate wars with other Civs crossing my land to get to it and set up home there. Also, one would have to be careful not to build any culture in the twins surrounding it in order to preserve its purity, like the Amazon rain forest or Antarctica or something. Still, I wondered if anyone knew.

 

[tjs282]

How big must an empty area of map be to allow barbarian camps/villages to start reappearing? I had a crazy idea of leaving such a void area inside the Mayan empire and then farming slaves from it but then it occurred to me this might precipitate wars with other Civs crossing my land to get to it and set up home there. Also, one would have to be careful not to build any culture in the twins surrounding it in order to preserve its purity, like the Amazon rain forest or Antarctica or something. Still, I wondered if anyone knew.

Don't quote me on this, but I believe that Barb-camps appear in previously explored/exposed squares which are currently beyond visual range both from the nearest cultural border(s), and also from any unit, including AI-units, i.e. from your PoV, the squares where you can see the underlying terrain, but which are currently slightly greyed-out. If I'm right, and if you're lucky enough to roll a map which allows you to create a culture-free hole within your own borders, then your barb-farming idea should work.

How big a hole?
A 1x1 culture-hole (cities at CxVxC, where V=visible tile, nominally beyond borders) will usually get closed automatically
A 2x2 hole (cities at CxVVxC) might not automatically close at CityCulture=0, but all the tiles within it would be visible from your borders
A 3x3 hole (cities at CxVRVxC, where R=non-visible reserve) might not be very useful for barb-breeding -- because unless that was the last free non-visible tile on the map, you might not get many camps spawning there
A 4x4 hole (cities at CxVRRVxC), would give a non-visible barb-reservation of 2x2 tiles
So the smallest useful hole would have to be at least 3x3; you'd also need to make sure that all those tiles were roaded, so you could get your units in and out in no more than 1-2T. For a reserve any larger than that, you'd probably want a Large or Huge map, so as to minimise the percentage of land that you're trying to hold as a reserve, and thus can't use productively.

And you would have to avoid signing RoPs -- at least, with the AICivs on your continent -- or they would try and plonk a town(s) in that 3x3 hole. Also, because the AI also loves going barb-hunting, you'd want to be sure that you could attack and hopefully enSlave any spawned barb before the AI-units could reach it. Without an RoP, incoming AI-units might indicate that a camp had appeared on your reserve. Once you've dispersed the camp, hopefully enSlaved its defender, and retreated your units, the AI barb-hunters should also lose interest, and retreat back beyond your borders. You'd probably want to avoid having to boot them, though, since that would risk them either getting to the barb-camp quicker, or DoWing you.

One possibility that would alleviate both the 'lost land' and the 'AI-Settler' problems (although not the 'AI barb-hunter' problem), would be to create your barb-reservation within a mountainous region on a 3-bn year map. That way, you might even be able to use a 2x2 reserve, if the cities are built with high ground between them and the reserve.

All in all though, seems like a lot of trouble to go to when you could just enSlave the AI-citizens and units instead. Or were you hoping to use this idea to obtain lots of early barb-Slaves without triggering your GA?

 

[justanick]

Don't quote me on this, but I believe that Barb-camps appear in previously explored/exposed squares which are currently beyond visual range both from the nearest cultural border(s), and also from any unit, including AI-units, i.e. from your PoV, the squares where you can see the underlying terrain, but which are currently slightly greyed-out.

It is not any unit, the unit needs to be able to fight off the barbarians. So warrrior and better is fine, but settlers, workers, explorers and artillery will not have any such effect.

A 3x3 hole (cities at CxVRVxC, where R=non-visible reserve) might not be very useful for barb-breeding -- because unless that was the last free non-visible tile on the map, you might not get many camps spawning there

3x3 would seem to be the best solution as there is no more than one tile where barbarians camps can appear. Maybe it will even be small enough to discourage AI from settling there.

I would like to point out that slave farming against regular AI units tends to be neither very efficient nor very convienient. Against Barbarians it is even worse. The mayan UU can be a distriction. I can lure one into playing bad.

 

[walletta]

Thanks tjs282. Great reply. A roaded mountain range seems to be the best idea. Or marsh. Does the AI ever clear marsh in order to found a city? I've never seen it. If not, then a large marshy area might be good too since the AI will not cross your land to settle there (and later on there's a chance of striking oil!)

I have tested Justanick's hypothesis extensively and agree that slave-farming with the Mayan UU can be distracting. It is very satisfying, however, when things go well and you quickly acquire a small army of slaves. I mentioned on another thread that, in one game, I had two early armies of Mayan UUs which, in a war with a neighbour and animation switched off, produced slaves with machine-gun rapidity.

 

[Buttercup]

One weirdness I'd point out is that Barbarians can appear in lit-up areas as long as there's no actual Units creating that lit-up area - ie: by using Watch Towers (or whatever they're called). I assumed Watch Towers would make for a good Barbarian prevention system in silly areas I had no interest in Settling, but it turns out they don't actually serve this function, they just act as street lamps. It can be quite fun watching Barb Camps suddenly appear and could be useful for someone who wants to perform a Barb milking strategy.

 

[tjs282]

One weirdness I'd point out is that Barbarians can appear in lit-up areas as long as there's no actual Units creating that lit-up area - ie: by using Watch Towers (or whatever they're called). I assumed Watch Towers would make for a good Barbarian prevention system in silly areas I had no interest in Settling, but it turns out they don't actually serve this function, they just act as street lamps. It can be quite fun watching Barb Camps suddenly appear and could be useful for someone who wants to perform a Barb milking strategy.

Good trick, and thanks! I didn't know that about Outposts (I think I only ever built a couple of them, in my first ever game of Conquests, just to see what happened). Guess the PtW(?) code wasn't updated to include their effect...?

Also makes the barb-reserve idea a bit stronger -- because you could use your inexhaustible supply of Slaves to build them (and Airfields, later), and you wouldn't need to mobilise troops every turn, just to check if a camp had appeared on that IBT. Also, you'd get to keep any native Workers for the more time-consuming jobs.

 

[Kirejara]

Also barbarian camps can spawn within sight of a non combat units (worker, settler).

But they need at least one city on the land mass to spawn (exceptions are via editor preplaced camps on custom maps).

So an uninhabitated island would not work as barbarian land.

 

[walletta]

This is probably more like a newbie answer than a question, but I just got to the turn before launching the space ship and, as a valedictory parting shot, decided to nuke the planet resulting in … total war from all sides and inability to launch (the F window won't even open and let me see the ship ). So, my question: does employing nuclear weapons somehow impede launching the ship?

 

[Lord AJ]

This is probably more like a newbie answer than a question, but I just got to the turn before launching the space ship and, as a valedictory parting shot, decided to nuke the planet resulting in … total war from all sides and inability to launch (the F window won't even open and let me see the ship ). So, my question: does employing nuclear weapons somehow impede launching the ship?

Shouldn't the window open automatically after all parts are Complete?

 

[walletta]

Shouldn't the window open automatically after all parts are Complete?

Yes, it should but when I completed, not only did it not open, it was not even there anymore. That is to say, the relevant F key would not give me a shot of the ship. It just took me back to the map. In the F8 overview of game progress, all 10 parts of the ship were listed as complete.