RB1 - Cuban Isolationists

[BotlGnomz]

Firstly, I'd like to say that if you guys got ALL SEVEN RELIGIONS, you would officially win the universe.
Secondly, I have a question. What does it mean when those tiles are circled with light blue?
Thirdly, if anyone watching or writing this thread could help me out with my problems running Civ 4 (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=136338), I would appreciate it muchly!

 

[Sirian]

Sulla says we should grab Philosophy, but I expect it doesn't actually work that way. My bet is that if we can research a tech with the next leader, that it would be Divine Right and he won't be able to learn it all by himself. If (and I stress IF) Sulla is right and it lets us pick Philo, and we can guaranteed nab Taoism by doing that, I'll do it. Just to please the peanut gallery, who seem eager for us to run the table.

If you thought you had the military edge to do so (with reasonable effort), would you hesitate to conquer the English cities at this point?

Archers and even Warriors make formiddable early-game city defenders if you are attacking with nothing but Warriors and Archers yourself. Both units get city defense bonuses, and will probably have fortify bonuses. May have City Garrison bonus, or hill defense bonus.

You more or less need a MILITARY RESOURCE connected to go on the attack. Chariots minimum, axemen, swords, horse archers - preferably promoted. An Aggressive civ with a barracks can build axe or sword that start with free Combat I and then can promote to Cover or City Raider I, then promote AGAIN if they win their first combat. THAT is a unit that can contemplate attacking. What we have had until now is just for defense.

Of course, with Sulla's religious fervor, who has time to attack?

What does it mean when those tiles are circled with light blue?

It means that Sulla (unlike me) has not turned off Unit Recommendations. The game will suggest locations to plant cities, or which tiles to work next and what to do there. It's not half bad at it -- can help new players -- but I turn it off.

The really COOL thing about SG play now is that your settings are stored in YOUR PROFILE, not in the game! Thus with each round, passing this game back and forth, we don't have to fiddle any settings. My machine automatically runs -my- settings, and his runs his settings. (Note that I turn Show Health Bars on! That is, like, the shiznit, in my book. I also turn off Sid's advice (no offense, Sid) and all other forms of advice and tips, but turn on Show Enemy Moves, at least in my SP profile.)


- Sirian

 

[Sullla]

Religious fervor! Smite the heathens!

Seriously though, the ability to turn those settings on and off is great. I'm not a huge fan of the unit health bars, but I love having the tile grid on (which is not to Sirian's preferences). Sid's tips stay on for me because, well, I actually wrote most of them when working for Firaxis this summer. It's a huge relief that we don't each have to turn these things on and off when passing save games back and forth. (I also didn't know that you could turn off the worker/settler suggestions... think I'll do that.)

And I plan to have my site back up soon at a new webhost. Stay tuned...

 

[microbe]

I notice in one screenshot your city will grow and finish a granary at the same turn. In CIV3 this is to be avoided. What's the deal in CIV4? Is granary still functioning the same way?

 

[The Caltrop]

Name one of your cities Ciego de Ávila. You know you want to...

 

[Sirian]

I notice in one screenshot your city will grow and finish a granary at the same turn. In CIV3 this is to be avoided. What's the deal in CIV4? Is granary still functioning the same way?

Granaries now save half the food produced, not half the food in the box. They begin working immediately, but if your food box is already almost full when you finish, then you will only have zero or one food stored up after you grow, because food saved before you finished the granary does not benefit.

Short answer: like so many other bits of "stupid math" this one has been fixed. You can play and not worry about the game wasting anything, or having to babysit the details.


These are the kinds of things that are changed all through Civ4, and it will take folks a while to adjust. Part of why I'm having a good time with this game even after working on it for a year and a half is stuff like this. I can focus on the strategy, the fun, and not the bean counting.


- Sirian

 

[M60A3TTS]

I have a question for you religious zealots. Is the Church of the Nativity missing? It's in the civlopedia, but I founded Christianity and made it my state religion, yet the holy city has no option to build it, even without any wonders constructed.

 

[Grunthex]

I have a question for you religious zealots. Is the Church of the Nativity missing? It's in the civlopedia, but I founded Christianity and made it my state religion, yet the holy city has no option to build it, even without any wonders constructed.

lurker's comment: I think Church of the Nativity is the Christian "shrine" and as such can only be built by a Great Prophet in the Christian Holy city. Hope this helps.

Sirian, Sullla -- this game rocks!

 

[Sirian]

Early: Trained the spearmen Sulla had started. M-city begins Settler. Havana begins construction of Chicken Itch, per Sulla. Discover Monarchy, start Metal Casting. (We've got gold, so Forges add happy as well as production.)

Civics change to HR. "Happy Happy, Joy Joy" at well defended cities.



Stone connected.


Middle: Train settler in Santa Rosa, start Lighthouse.

Taoism falls to an unknown civ.



Santiago founded at Light Blue Dot, starts Granary.


Late: Worker actions. Barbarians in the east, punt the decision on whether to stand ground (at questionable odds) in to Sulla's hands.





OK, so... let's peek inside our cities.

ROSA



10spt! Nice. You are looking at one of the last remaining bits of major tedium in the management of Civ4 game elements. Production and commerce bonuses do not apply remainders. See that +25% production boost? That applies only to the base amount, and partials count for nothing.

With 25% boost:

Base 3 - Bonus 0
Base 4 - Bonus 1
Base 7 - Bonus 1
Base 8 - Bonus 2
Base 9 - Bonus 2
Base 11 - Bonus 2
Base 12 - Bonus 3

Arrgh!

The good news is that the city governors are aware of this will squeeze out the extra shield if it brings in an additional extra bonus shield -- at least sometimes. So you don't have to constantly babysit, and I tend not to do it that much as a general rule because I find too much of this boring.

It makes the most difference early in the game, when the difference between 3spt and 5spt is significant.

The other good news is that bonuses are added together THEN applied, so two +25% bonuses (for instance from Forge and Organized Religion) are added together to make +50%, and will take 2spt in to 3spt.

I would have preferred that the percentages keep track of fractions, even if they only did so behind the mirror. ... But oh well. Nobody gets 100% of everything they ask for.

The city governor at Rosa is using the config I would use, though, so I left him in charge. (Any time you click on any city plots, you have turned off the governor and must turn him back on if you want him to be in charge. Either you are microing, or the governor is in charge -- though you can macro by telling him which way to lean -- including more than one lean at a time!)

Sulla, we should chop that forest on the hill by the river and replace with a mine! We also want to get a galley built soonish and send scouts and maybe a settler party across to that island/continent/whatever.


M-CITY



Cottages. Three of 'em. Inland cities can be production or city specialist havens, or they can have some commerce. Can't really do both! No cottages = Po' Folks' House.

You can only really do cottages on the grass, though. As a rule of thumb. Any cottages on plains means you must counterbalance with surplus food elsewhere, and that is not always easy.


SANTIAGO



Like, that granary will finish, and then the ideal thing is to put one turn in to a Work Boat and whip it the second turn.


HAVANA

When it grows to size 10, it looks ripe for running two Priests at break even food. Can pick up the pop point from the forest for the second Priest.



Let's get those Prophets cranking already!

 

[Sirian]

I'm less than happy that we've got a ton of commerce at the capital and went this long without a library.

I hope we can rectify that soon.

We also really really need some more cities in the next few rounds.
We are almost to Currency, which is more less the point at which one can normally afford extra cities.
Although, admittedly, that is with OPEN borders.
Still, we'd better git ourselves on up to Banking before too awfully much longer!

Feudalism -> Guilds+Machinery -> Banking

If only we could beeline it! But... probably not.


I'd also really like to check out that land across the water.



Vicky can get there, too. ... If she poaches that land... Sirian =


- Sirian

 

[zakalwe]

In your last screenshot, are those foreign borders we can glimpse in the forest across the water?

 

[Balastulin]

Zakalwe.

Eagle eyes!!!

Nice spot.

 

[Sirian]

Zakalwe.

Eagle eyes!!!

Nice spot.

Ooh! Could be.

 

[Atlas]

@Sirian/Sullla

Is there any benefit in Civ 4 to meeting the other Civs, like Civ 3 lowered tech costs etc.?

 

[insydr]

Note that I turn Show Health Bars on! That is, like, the shiznit, in my book.

I did this too at first, but then I noticed something really strange/annoying: the health bar would update with the results of the battle before the battle was finished!

For instance, I would watch the enemy attack a unit with full green, and as soon as the enemy unit enters my square to start the attack animation, the health bar changes to yellow. THEN I watch as my unit wins the battle. Kind of takes the suspense out of it, no?

 

[regoarrarr]

I did this too at first, but then I noticed something really strange/annoying: the health bar would update with the results of the battle before the battle was finished!

For instance, I would watch the enemy attack a unit with full green, and as soon as the enemy unit enters my square to start the attack animation, the health bar changes to yellow. THEN I watch as my unit wins the battle. Kind of takes the suspense out of it, no?

You can also see this (or not see it if you don't want to be spoiled) in the health number of the given units. If you are attacking and win, your unit's health will go down to some lower number and the opponent's will go to 0/6 (or whatever). If you lose, your unit will go down to 0.0/10 and the opponent's will remain non-zero

 

[Shillen]

Lurker's Comment:

It means that Sulla (unlike me) has not turned off Unit Recommendations. The game will suggest locations to plant cities, or which tiles to work next and what to do there. It's not half bad at it -- can help new players -- but I turn it off.

I actually like to leave this on. Of course I don't do what the game tells me but what I think is the best option, but once in a while the game will point out something I missed. Like an unconnected resource or a good tile that I hadn't improved. Not so much in the early game but later on when you have a bunch of cities and aren't scrutinizing every one of them so much.

The other good news is that bonuses are added together THEN applied, so two +25% bonuses (for instance from Forge and Organized Religion) are added together to make +50%, and will take 2spt in to 3spt.

I'm not sure how this is good news? If it counted the bonuses separately then they would be compounded and you would generate more spt. Of course the way it is it's easier to calculate, but then the game calculates it for you so I'd take the compound bonus if I had a choice. Let me know if I'm missing something.

I did this too at first, but then I noticed something really strange/annoying: the health bar would update with the results of the battle before the battle was finished!

This is the best thing about it, IMO. I think the animations get old really fast. I'd turn them off completely if not for the fact that it's really hard to tell what happened if there's no animation at all. And then sometimes you kill 2 of their guys and their last one kills all 3 of yours which can be annoying if you didn't know the outcome before it happened. But I also choose the option for single unit animations for exactly that reason. To each his own.

Great game by the way guys; I'm really enjoying it and learning new things at the same time. I used the whip to good effect for the first time in a game last night. It can be really useful for jumpstarting new cities early in the game, especially high food/low shield cities.

 

[Sullla]

Bummer about Taoism being taken elsewhere. Prince is probably a little too high of a difficulty level to try and run all the religion (it would be possible, but not easy.)

Sirian, were you planning on emailing me the save file? I didn't see it when I checked this morning.

 

[Shillen]

Lurker comment/question:

Archers and even Warriors make formiddable early-game city defenders if you are attacking with nothing but Warriors and Archers yourself. Both units get city defense bonuses, and will probably have fortify bonuses. May have City Garrison bonus, or hill defense bonus.

You more or less need a MILITARY RESOURCE connected to go on the attack. Chariots minimum, axemen, swords, horse archers - preferably promoted. An Aggressive civ with a barracks can build axe or sword that start with free Combat I and then can promote to Cover or City Raider I, then promote AGAIN if they win their first combat. THAT is a unit that can contemplate attacking. What we have had until now is just for defense.

You say you can contemplate attacking, but is it ever really in your best interest to do so? I've tried to wage wars with swordsmen/axemen/chariots in the early early game a few times and I haven't had much success with it. Sure I can win the war and take a couple cities from the AI that I'm attacking, but at the expense of building a ton of units and little infrastructure. And even then the war usually takes a long time just to get a city or two from them. Then when you make peace it seems to be a lot harder to get them to give you techs/cities than it was in civ3. In fact I've never gotten them to give me a city yet. But my point is by the time the war is over, sure I knocked that AI down a peg but we end up so far behind the other civs that weren't warring that it's really hard to catch up again.

If I want a meaningful war I need catapults so I can not only capture their cities faster but using fewer units. Is that your general impression as well or do you think going to war without catapults can still be advantageous?

Sorry for butting into your thread again.

 

[Sirian]

Shillen: there's more than one right answer. Attacking can be of benefit. It often means building military units INSTEAD OF your own settlers, and the cash you get from taking cities brings some payoff, too. You have to be successful, though.

In a situation with only one other civ on the continent, taking it all over for yourself can be attractive.

We may be meeting neighbors to the north soon, though. No plan survives contact with the enemy! (Just look at "White Dot"!)


- Sirian