The amount of foreigners does not count, at least for the global change in AI attitude. If you abandon a city within 20 turns after taking it, than it counts just as razing. After 20 turns have passed it is just as if the city were your own from the start.
Quick Answers / 'Newbie' Questions
- Thread starter Turner
- Start date
The amount of foreigners does not count, at least for the global change in AI attitude. If you abandon a city within 20 turns after taking it, than it counts just as razing. After 20 turns have passed it is just as if the city were your own from the start.
tjs282
Stone \ Cold / Fish
Provided you've built up a reasonably good treasury (e.g. by selling stuff for lump-sum, or by raiding barb-villages — though you obviously can't do the latter with 'No barbarians' set), you don't need to worry about running a deficit for some turns. Only when your treasury reaches zero, do building/units start getting demolished/disbanded (but only 1 item per turn).
But if income is a problem, I have to ask: Are you still overdoing things on (defensive) units, and (happiness?) buildings you don't need...?
See above: -9gpt over 4 turns is not a huge amount: total projected 'cost' = 36 gold, and likely less, if you can reduce the SCI-slider after 3 turns of research, and still get Econ on the next (4th) IBT. And if you can complete Smiths soon after (ideally on the same turn as) Econ, you could possibly get all that back within the next couple of turns, at most, depending on how many Harbours, Markets and Banks* you built already.
That said, you should never really be in the position of 'needing' to build any GWonder to win — especially not at Warlord...
*And see also above question re. useless buildings: when SCI% + LUX% = 90-100%, i.e. TAX% = 0-10%, then Banks do little or nothing to improve your income, and hence are a waste of shields/gold.
One fewer naturally content citizen per town (3 instead of 4?) might make riots slightly more difficult (i.e. costly) to prevent.
But under Despotism, in the early game, 1 Lux + 2 mil-units per town would keep everyone content-or-better-on-average up to Pop6 (1 happy citizen from the Lux, 3 content citizens for Warlord, 2 content citizens via military-police). After you switch to Republic, Pop7-8 should still be relatively manageable, with a little LUX%-spending substituting for the military support (provided you also disbanded any now-unneeded garrisons!).
On a Tiny map, with only 4 Civs distributed over 2(?) main land-masses, I would expect to have access to at least 1 Lux on/near my home island, if not 2 — and towards the end of the Medieval Age, you would have to be pretty unlucky to have all 8 Luxes still inaccessible. (Have the pathetic AI-Civs still not got round to building any Harbours, and/or have you not got Magnetism for trade over Ocean tiles yet...?)
Citation needed? Because this contradicts both @SirPleb and @Bamspeedy (from the same AI-attitude thread linked above)...
(Noting that the second quote is not necessarily corroboration of the first, per se: @Bamspeedy was answering someone else's question, so might have been taking @SirPleb on trust...)
WeirdoJoker
King
Right. I haven't had that happen this game, and I've now gotten to the point where it is really, really unlikely. But it took a while. Part of the problem was I could not trade for so long because the AI Civs were all on the other side of the world. Not by design, just happened that way. Now, it's not a problem (and I picked up Wines by taking out the incredibly weak French).
I actually have built very few defensive units, and haven't even been upgrading many of them because I find an invasion to be very, very unlikely - both remaining Civs are happy with me, and I haven't decided whether to go after them or not. I'm really aiming for a Cultural or Space Race victory rather than Domination/Conquest. I have been playing the negative gpt thing, though, when I feel comfortable doing it, and checking the SCI-slider to maximize income. (I did get Smith's easily, but didn't prebuild to get to it.) And since I'm going primarily for Cultural, I've been building stuff. And it's now been a while that I've moved the LUX-slider back down to zero (though it was only ever at 10% anyway).
Wouldn't that depend greatly on circumstance, though? Closeness of the AI Civs, aggression levels, target victory condition, that sort of thing?
Not quite sure how that works, though I haven't had the SCI-slider nearly that high, and the LUX-slider never got above 10%.
I did find some trouble with that, but it was generally manageable.
Is there an ideal number of defensive units per city to maintain? As I said, I've got rather few (especially compared to what I used to do), and have been cranking out offensive units (currently Cavs) in case I decide to go to war again.
I've got all the trading going on now, but again, it took a while. I think I only had one Lux available until trading started, and have two now that I've retired the French. Might be trading for 1 or 2 others (I'm not looking at the game right now).
I remember a game, where the Barbarians did the job for me...
Major difference between Chieftain and Warlord: on Chieftain your treasury may go below zero without any consequences! On Warlord and higher, a unit or building is disbanded, whenever your treasury falls below zero.
Yes, but it depends on difficulty level and on the map. On Warlord that number is definitely zero.
If you have an island for yourself, it can also be very low, once the barb problem has been solved.
On Sid and in the middle of a Pangaea, I would rather have 10 defenders in every border town...
WeirdoJoker
King
I have encountered that, and I remember being shocked to discover it. What's worse, I had one game a while back where even with the SCI and LUX sliders set to zero I still had negative income and was forced to sell/disband something.
Ok, that makes sense. So even at two defenders per town (it's a small continent, so there isn't really a border versus interior), in a "just-in-case" scenario, I'm probably being too cautious.Yes, but it depends on difficulty level and on the map. On Warlord that number is definitely zero.
If you have an island for yourself, it can also be very low, once the barb problem has been solved.
On Sid and in the middle of a Pangaea, I would rather have 10 defenders in every border town...
Well, you did just quote me. I had tested that bit myself. 19 turns after taking a city i made a third party "cautious" which is the neutral setting for AI Attitude. Abandoning the city then gave the penalty. By doing the same thing in a savegame from 20 turns after taking the city the attitude of "cautious" remains there when the city is abandoned. It is easy to reproduce.
If you have a lot of buildings or units that require support, you can use up all your income fairly easily. 100k games in Feudalism tend to have this problem - I might be losing 100 gpt near the end with all my sliders set to zero and gpt coming in from the AI because I have to pay so much for building maintenance. Pop-rushing all the time means I have few citizens to make money for me.
In republic, though, you either have _way_ too many units, you aren't roading your tiles, or you are paying massive gpt to the AI. While there are certain times that you might reasonably pay lots of gpt to the AI - to get iron or coal for 20 turns while you railroad everything, for example - you want to otherwise avoid these situations. In republic, you probably don't want any defenders except in the capital, the 20k town if going for 20k, and in border towns. If you own your continent you don't need any defenders for towns unless there are amphibious invaders, but you do need a mobile attack force. On Sid, of course, I'd put a unit on every non-city tile on the coast, but I don't play Sid very often, and certainly never on Pangaea.
WeirdoJoker
King
Chances are I had too many units, which is something I used to do quite a lot, especially going overboard with defensive units. Since I'm going for a Cultural victory (or Space Race, if that comes first), I'm fairly light on units, and in no danger of being invaded. Just as well ... I don't have access to rubber, the AIs are behind in tech, and I'd have to go to war to get the rubber in order to build more units to go to more war ... not relevant for either target victory, I think. (And if I've forgotten needing rubber for the Space Race, I can always gear up & go take it later.)
vorlon_mi
Emperor
Something to consider -- you've described your map as having 4 relatively small land masses, one for each civ. Once you've put enough cities down to cover the land and prevent barbs from spawning, you could locate a pod of defenders/counter-attackers on some roads near the center of the land mass. I assume that you've been putting down lots of roads, and that all of your cities are connected.
You're talking to the AI, and know if they're getting grumpy. Any invading boats always come in pairs or threes, and you would have a turn (or two) to see them coming. Your "home guard" could use the road network to move to the side of the island where the AI galleys are approaching. Key point: the number of defenders/counter-attackers can be smaller than 2*(number of cities), and could be as small as 4 or 5.
Sorry but new question..I am building a palace as a stockpile of production credits towards a GW. If I get close to gaining to advance I convert all citizens to entertainers to stall production until I gain the advance. ALWAYS the ai overrides my control of the citizens and the palace is completed before I gain the advance.
How do I override the ai control of the citizens?
Thanks for any response!
How do I override the ai control of the citizens?
Thanks for any response!
tjs282
Stone \ Cold / Fish
First off, if you have the city-governor switched on ('Manage citizen moods'), then turn that off!
But even if you don't have the governator switched on, if you're turning everyone into Clowns, that presumably means that the would-be Wonder-town is starving before the tech is in/ GWonder is built, which is still counterproductive. Even with the governator switched off, whenever a town changes size (loses or gains pop-points), the citizens may/will be redistributed, and Specialists sent back out to work on free land tiles, so most/all of your Clowns will go back to work (and start bringing in shields again) regardless.
So rather than turning everyone into Clowns, you should simply ensure that the town's citizens are distributed preferentially to the high-food/low-shield tiles (maybe temporarily convert some Grass/Plains-mines to irrigation if necessary): just enough 'Farmers/Fishermen' to feed everyone and make net* zero (or at least minimal) food and shields per turn, and only make the excess citizens into Specialists.
*(If the food-box is already sufficiently empty/full, then net +/-1 fpt would also be OK, so long as the food-box would not be expected to completely fill/empty until after the tech was in/ GWonder was built).
Also, if you have to make Specialists because your beakers aren't stacking quick enough to get the Wonder-tech before your Wonder-prebuild shield-box is full, then shuuurely Scientists would be better than Clowns...?
Thank you Whale Snark (love that)! Governator is always turned off but I didn't realize the AI redistributed the citizens whenever the pop changed. Since I've timed the palace complete and tech gain in the same turn, then I must find a balance of specialists that won't result in a pop change and redistribute the remaining citizens onto low shield tiles to lower shield production enough to delay palace completion.
Do I have that right?
As always,
The knowledge and help available here is amazing,
Bartleby
Remembers laughter
When you learn the tech, and the science advisor pops up, choose "What's the big picture?"
From there you can switch to the domestic advisor and swap the palace build to your wonder.
From there you can switch to the domestic advisor and swap the palace build to your wonder.
Unless you have foreknowledge of the AI's project completion status, I recommend that you leave a gap of one or two turns, to have some leeway, in case you cannot do what Bartleby recommends (an old standby) or your population also changes, or you just stop receiving a luxury from abroad and your number of happy faces changes, or whatever any other myriad factors can suddenly make your production go up/down during the interturn.
vorlon_mi
Emperor
I never have it timed out perfectly. I use the prebuild as a "head start" on building the Great Wonder. Nearly every time, when I learn the tech and switch, I may have 3, 5, or even 10 turns to go. Since I'm building Newton's U in the same city as I built Cope's, that city may not have many turns to prebuild before I learn Theory of Gravity.
The AI will never start building a wonder until they get the tech. Turn on the option for "wonder popups" so that you get a message when any AI (that you have met) has started a wonder. If you're not at war with them, you can use the Espionage screen and spend gold to "Investigate City" for that city. You will get a point-in-time snapshot of the AI city's shields-per-turn, their food surplus, and estimate of when their wonder will complete. In my games, the AI seem to do a better job of irrigating to grow their cities to size 12 before mine grow that big. Thus, the AI city may have more spt than my city, and I need to have the head start to win the race. In the Middle Ages, one must be careful of a "Wonder Cascade." Example: if tribe A is trying to build Sun Tzu and loses, it may switch to Michelangelo's. Tribe B was trying to build Mike's, loses, and switches to Leo's. And so on ... in the space of a couple of inter-turns, wonders can disappear in a bunch.
WeirdoJoker
King
Question: is there any reason to not build cities on jungle squares? Should the jungle be cleared first, or should the cities just be built irrespective of terrain? (Apart from places you cannot build, like mountains.)
In fact, building a city on jungle (and desert for that matter) is the best way to get rid of these inferior tiles! (Provided of course, there are a few good tiles in the vicinity of the new city. If there is nothing but jungle, other (better) city locations have of course priority.)
WeirdoJoker
King
Thanks. I'm in an area loaded with jungle, and other civs were taking up space fast, so I decided to just make the best of the situation and place the cities as best as possible and clear out what I could. Plus, north of the expansive jungle is expansive marshland. Makes me wish I was playing an industrious civ instead of Sumerians so the workers could clear out more quickly.
