Quick Questions / Quick Answers

[Sundance Kid]

Surely a newbie question but... What do I need to trade cities? Or should I say... What makes a city "tradeable"? I have conquered a city from Netherlands and another one from the Zulus, and I've kept them as puppets. I can't give them back like that, nor I can give them back if I previously annex them. What am I doing wrong?

You need to have an embassy in that player's capital to be able to trade cities with him. And maybe he needs an embassy in your capital, too... I'm not sure.

 

[Chandler]

So... If asking for an embassy is "Impossible!" does it mean I just can't give their cities back to them? Hum... that seems a weird condition.

And one more question. How do the coups work? I was allied with Riga by several hundreds of influence, and after a coup from England now I need 850!!! more influence to become allies again. Do the coups revert the influence or something like that? If so, they seem way, WAAAY better than the Great Diplomats "secondary ability" (I mean, the influence one).

 

[Grabbl]

Coups swap the influence of the two players involved, so you have the influence England had and England has the influence you had. That's a strong ability, you're right, and probably stronger than Great Diplomats, but that's why there is a chance to fail: Usually, you need to level up your spies before having reasonable coup chance, so you already "invested" something (unless you're England, of course ).

And regarding city trading: Yes, you need an embassy (and thus somewhat "neutral " relations). Even then, it might be difficult to trade the cities. This is intentional as city conquering and trading was a highly-abusable element favouring the human player.

 

[Blue Ghost]

Can the randomized victory condition settings be customized through the XML/SQL? For instance, if I wanted the victory condition to be chosen at Modern era and domination to be removed from the pool, can that be done? Or are the settings hardcoded?

 

[Gazebo]

Can the randomized victory condition settings be customized through the XML/SQL? For instance, if I wanted the victory condition to be chosen at Modern era and domination to be removed from the pool, can that be done? Or are the settings hardcoded?

No.

 

[Moi Magnus]

So... If asking for an embassy is "Impossible!" does it mean I just can't give their cities back to them? Hum... that seems a weird condition.

If you don't have an embassy with someone, it means that they don't want to deal with you. You're not really at peace, you on a "cease-fire", with a lot of tensions. So only "basic" deals are possible. (Because you will always find merchants willing to go to a dangerous forein country in order to win some money)

(In short, even if the restriction "having an embassy" was not present, if the embassy is impossible, then the AI would also refuse any city trade deal, event "I give you back your capital". It represent the fact that they don't trust you at all
"Sure, we killed a lot of your people, but now, we're willing to give you back your cities, just send your people to the city, it NOT AT ALL a trap".)

 

[Chandler]

Ok, now it does make some sense xD

Ugh. They were the ones who declared war on me. Is there any way to get better relationships with them if they despise you, apart from "trade gifts"?

 

[Emufarmers]

Ugh. They were the ones who declared war on me. Is there any way to get better relationships with them if they despise you, apart from "trade gifts"?

Beat them up until they capitulate.

 

[Chandler]

Nah... They would treat me well, but the other ones not. I don't want to make everyone my vassal ^^u

 

[neo_arcadia]

Maybe it's time to move on and accept that they won't be your friends anymore haha.

I mean, this is a game where you can't have everything, you know. If you turn on transparent diplomacy and you see too many red texts I am pretty sure that particular civ would like to see you dead.

 

[lunker]

1. How is Great Scientist bulb calculated?
2. How is Great Writer bulb calculated?
3. Does the 33% faster Great General/Great Admiral work with Portugal's trade routes?
4. Does razing a city upon city any different than razing a city after annexation.

 

[tu_79]

1. How is Great Scientist bulb calculated?
2. How is Great Writer bulb calculated?
3. Does the 33% faster Great General/Great Admiral work with Portugal's trade routes?
4. Does razing a city upon city any different than razing a city after annexation.

1 and 2. Your average science/culture in the last 10 turns (was it 15 now?), modified by the number of Academies/GW of Writting you have.

 

[Moi Magnus]

1. How is Great Scientist bulb calculated?
2. How is Great Writer bulb calculated?
3. Does the 33% faster Great General/Great Admiral work with Portugal's trade routes?
4. Does razing a city upon city any different than razing a city after annexation.

1&2 -> PRO tip : once you can buy a GP with faith, you can just look at its unit tooltip inside a city (at least with the EUI tooltip) and you will see how it is calculated. However, since nobody really want to take care of the long and uninteresting burden of rewriting the interface, a lot infos are hard to find.

3 -> Don't know
4 -> Unless there is a bug, there is no difference.

 

[Chandler]

Back with more questions... Is there any way to decide which "mission" do I want my spies to accomplish? If I send one to an opponent's capital, can I command them to assassinate? Or to steal GWs? Or anything? Or is it absolutely random? I don't know if I'm using the spies correctly, because they usually feel really underwhelming to me.

 

[neo_arcadia]

You have to choose one from two primary mission: steal tech or steal great works. Everything else like assassination, steal gold etc is random. By the way your spy cannot steal great works located in capital so if you send spy to capital your options become: be a diplomat or be a tech-stealing spy.

Curious. What makes you think spy action is underwhelming?

 

[Chandler]

Curious. What makes you think spy action is underwhelming?

It may be because I play in "low" difficulties (prince), and by the time I can use spies, I am usually ahead of the rest of the civs, so I can't steal any tech from anyone. And if I try to use them as spies to steal money or science, it damages my relationship with them, which I don't like (I like to be friends with as many as possible ^^u), so I usually go only for diplomats. It's nice to see what's built and what's being built in any city, and grab a few votes for the World Congress here and there (sometimes, really expensive votes), but that's it. Maybe my problem is the difficulty level, and I should raise it.

That said, I didn't know about the capital thing, and I've always sent my spies to the civs' capitals. I'll try those options with other cities. Thanks.

Edit: a new question, due to something that has happened in my game. If I place an embassy in a CS, I'll get one vote from them as long as they aren't conquered by anyone. But what happens if another civ takes the embassy improvement with a citadel? I suppose that civ get the yields of the improvement, but do I still keep the vote?

Edit 2: ok, it seems I lost the embassy. I suppose it should be considered a "fair trade", as they spent another GP to get it.

Edit 3: and one more question. How do I steal the GWs? I saw a message telling "successful robbery" (or something like that). But when I go to the city and click on the GW, the "window" of my GWs is opened, and I don't know what to do there to get their GW for myself.

 

[neo_arcadia]

In higher difficulties spy does prove its usefulness. But then again, diplomatic repercussion is always there so you should expect some hiccup in international relationship.

Usually you send your spy to the city with highest potential which, most of the time, is capital. It is not always though.

Basically speaking anyone get their extra vote from their own embassy if that city state still alive and own the tile where embassy located. When that particular tile got stolen by another major civ using GG for example, it just becomes tile with yields.

You automatically becomes the new owner of that GW. You don't need to do anything. In the beginning of the turn that GW got successfully stolen, it will be displayed on your screen similar with when you create GW using your own great person. Now, if you want to see that GW just go to the GW screen as usual. Hope it helps.

 

[lunker]

What is the academy/GWW modifier for scientist and writer bulb?

 

[Chandler]

You automatically becomes the new owner of that GW. You don't need to do anything. In the beginning of the turn that GW got successfully stolen, it will be displayed on your screen similar with when you create GW using your own great person. Now, if you want to see that GW just go to the GW screen as usual. Hope it helps.

Hm... doesn't seem like that. I still see the GW of Literature in the Zulus' city, although I do have a GW of Art from the Zulus I swear I don't remember swapping for. Maybe that was the successful robbery? What should I do to also steal the GW of Literature? Take the spy out of the city and put it in back again?

 

[Morinoa]

I don't really understand how India's ability works. My religion doesn't seem to spread, at what size does the religious pressure become significant?

On a somewhat related note, what opener is India supposed to take? I just tried a game as Progress but I wasn't sure if this was the right choice.