Some technical questions

[Widdershins]

I posted here occasionally around two years ago, when I was playing Civ 6 furiously for some number of months. I've not played any previous versions of Civ, nor do I have Civ 7. Anyway, these past few weeks I've gotten into playing Civ 6 again. I had to relearn many things, and in a few ways I have improved compared to back when. There are still a few things that mystify me. Sometimes I've read the manual, but there's a lot there, and I miss things. Here's some questions:

1) If a city has a big surplus of renewable sources of power, what does it mean to give that city a coal-powered plant? Does coal consumption increase, or consumption of renewables? In the real world, of course, a coal plant gives no power without use of coal, but how is it in the game? Does the city get the plant's extra cogs without burning the extra coal?

2) Sea level will rise in one turn, and a flood barrier will be complete in one turn. Which happens first? Not being keen on the FAFO stratagem, I've always assumed the sea level rises first, and rush to finish the barrier.

3) Similar question to #2: my city is going to be attacked in the next turn, but city walls will be complete in the next turn also. Which happens first? I'm betting the walls come first, because sometimes I'm the attacker, and those AI city walls will suddenly appear before I can move units on a turn.

4) Is there ever any advantage to telling a newly-met civilization to screw off, rather than be welcoming?

5) Is there any way, without taking out pencil, paper, and calculator (as if preparing to do taxes), to figure out how a policy card will impact, say, gold income without actually (and irreversibly) implementing the policy? I'm guessing not...but if not, it would be nice to have a button that "previews" the impact of a set of policies on gold, science, faith, etc. Or am I missing something? Is there a mod that accomplishes this?


I'm doubtless forgetting some things, but maybe later I'll add more!

 

[Bonyduck Campersang]

Is there a mod that accomplishes this?

There is a mod for this. Don't remember its name, but I think you should be able to find it by searching "policy card"

 

[Mahasona]

Extended Policy Cards is what you want, shows all effects of policy cards in simple numbers. Better Report Screen is also very helpful too.

 

[Widdershins]

Okay, I'll look into that mod someday. Sounds promising. Meanwhile I've thought of another question:

6) What is the advantage of spending a military engineer charge to made a road on a single tile, when rail tiles with even lower movement cost can be made limitlessly? Really, what am I missing here?

 

[Jaybe]

Okay, I'll look into that mod someday. Sounds promising. Meanwhile I've thought of another question:

6) What is the advantage of spending a military engineer charge to made a road on a single tile, when rail tiles with even lower movement cost can be made limitlessly? Really, what am I missing here?

military engineered roads are available much earlier than railroads

 

[vorlon_mi]

I posted here occasionally around two years ago, when I was playing Civ 6 furiously for some number of months. I've not played any previous versions of Civ, nor do I have Civ 7. Anyway, these past few weeks I've gotten into playing Civ 6 again. I had to relearn many things, and in a few ways I have improved compared to back when. There are still a few things that mystify me. Sometimes I've read the manual, but there's a lot there, and I miss things. Here's some questions:

1) If a city has a big surplus of renewable sources of power, what does it mean to give that city a coal-powered plant? Does coal consumption increase, or consumption of renewables? In the real world, of course, a coal plant gives no power without use of coal, but how is it in the game? Does the city get the plant's extra cogs without burning the extra coal?

2) Sea level will rise in one turn, and a flood barrier will be complete in one turn. Which happens first? Not being keen on the FAFO stratagem, I've always assumed the sea level rises first, and rush to finish the barrier.

3) Similar question to #2: my city is going to be attacked in the next turn, but city walls will be complete in the next turn also. Which happens first? I'm betting the walls come first, because sometimes I'm the attacker, and those AI city walls will suddenly appear before I can move units on a turn.

4) Is there ever any advantage to telling a newly-met civilization to screw off, rather than be welcoming?

I'm doubtless forgetting some things, but maybe later I'll add more!

1) I had a bunch of questions about power as well, when I first started playing. Certain buildings, e.g., Factory, Research Lab, Broadcast Center, consume power. You want to balance supply and demand. If a city has only a Campus, you may be able to supply its power demand from a renewable source, like solar, wind, or a hydro dam. If a city has all 3 districts (Campus, Theater Square, IZ), you will want to build a power plant as well to satisfy demand. Note that one of the accelerators for the Space Victory also increases power demand. Consider power plants where demand is high.
The coal and oil power plants supply power (and improve operation of the buildings); each also consumes some of your empire's supply of those resources. It's possible to consume more than you're producing, since some units also consume coal and/or oil. Each of these also emits CO2 pollution, increasing the risk of sea level rise. When I research computers, I immediately start building flood barriers wherever I can, to avoid the race condition in question 2)

2) What order do things happen on the inter-turn? The sea level rise seems to be in the same category as volcanos erupting and barbarian spawn/attacks. I think that they happen after all of the AI players have taken their turn, but before your next turn begins processing.

3) The human player plays turn XX, followed by all of the AI players on turn XX. I think that city-states and barbs play next, followed by the environment. When you start turn XX+1, the game looks at what your cities produce, what tech/civic you've finished, and what yields you've collected.
If the AI gets its turn, it can attack before your walls finish.

4) I've not run into that situation. From what I've read, certain cases can occur on higher difficulties, very early in the game. If you're just meeting a civ, being friendly can reveal the location of your capital. If the civ is notorious for being aggressive, you may be inviting a war before you're ready. But once you have 2-3 cities down, getting your empire launched, a few units built, I don't think the risk of revealing your capital is significant.

 

[Markvs]

military engineered roads are available much earlier than railroads

Well, yes, but OTOH you can get Flight before Military Engineering if you're so inclined. Which means that if you grab Radio soon enough... you can go for Advanced Flight and have built airports before you would be able to build a cross-continental railroad.

 

[Widdershins]

1) I had a bunch of questions about power as well, when I first started playing. Certain buildings, e.g., Factory, Research Lab, Broadcast Center, consume power. You want to balance supply and demand. If a city has only a Campus, you may be able to supply its power demand from a renewable source, like solar, wind, or a hydro dam. If a city has all 3 districts (Campus, Theater Square, IZ), you will want to build a power plant as well to satisfy demand. Note that one of the accelerators for the Space Victory also increases power demand. Consider power plants where demand is high.
The coal and oil power plants supply power (and improve operation of the buildings); each also consumes some of your empire's supply of those resources. It's possible to consume more than you're producing, since some units also consume coal and/or oil. Each of these also emits CO2 pollution, increasing the risk of sea level rise. When I research computers, I immediately start building flood barriers wherever I can, to avoid the race condition in question 2)

2) What order do things happen on the inter-turn? The sea level rise seems to be in the same category as volcanos erupting and barbarian spawn/attacks. I think that they happen after all of the AI players have taken their turn, but before your next turn begins processing.

3) The human player plays turn XX, followed by all of the AI players on turn XX. I think that city-states and barbs play next, followed by the environment. When you start turn XX+1, the game looks at what your cities produce, what tech/civic you've finished, and what yields you've collected.
If the AI gets its turn, it can attack before your walls finish.

4) I've not run into that situation. From what I've read, certain cases can occur on higher difficulties, very early in the game. If you're just meeting a civ, being friendly can reveal the location of your capital. If the civ is notorious for being aggressive, you may be inviting a war before you're ready. But once you have 2-3 cities down, getting your empire launched, a few units built, I don't think the risk of revealing your capital is significant.

1) POWER

a) I've played a few games all the way through since I made this thread, and picked up some things. First, I'm currently playing a game in which a city has power without a power plant or renewables. Government: merchant republic; leader: Queen Victoria (Age of Empire). The factory seems to be providing power. Just 2 units, but still, a bit of a puzzler for me. Maybe it was always this way, and I'm just now noticing because I'm paying more attention.

b) Building renewables certainly cuts down on coal consumption, and I found that every IZ can have a nuclear power plant without consuming any precious uranium if renewables are plentiful. It's all very weird.

c) I agree about getting going on flood barriers without delay. When I get caught short, I get a queue of military engineers streaming into a city turn after turn to use charges and speed up production.

d) Curious side note: playing as Vicky (Age of Steam) I had a couple dozen cities with literally nothing better to do than capture carbon. The final sea level rise stayed forever 7 turns away, and my net CO2 emissions were deep in the negatives. It'd be funny if the sea level could eventually be brought back down if total emissions from all civs were lowered sufficiently.

2) SEA LEVEL RISE - What you say seems right, though see item (3).

3) ORDER OF OPERATIONS

a) Let's see, I click the "next turn" button or whatever it is, and the other civs each do their thing. I would assume a "turn" commences when that button is hit, and ends when it's hit again. During such a "turn" I seem to be last to play, after other civs, barbs, city-states, and disasters. So if my flood barrier will be done in 1 turn, and also sea level is going to rise in 1 turn, then it seems that disaster will occur, and the time to complete the barrier will increase dramatically as I feared.

b) In my current game (immortal level) I noticed that, by some mind-boggling coincidence, ally Tokugawa and I were both scheduled to finish the University of Sankore in precisely 7 turns. That means I'd come out the loser. Aargh! Prioritizing production over food and everything else didn't move the needle. I hate chopping, and almost never do it, but chop I did, and beat Japan out.

4) MEETING A NEW CIV - I think you're right about the potential danger of revealing one's capital. I still welcome everyone I meet though. I don't know, I guess I'm just a welcoming kind of guy...? Of course, it's moot if the new civ is met because its scout has stumbled upon your capital.


Tangential to item (4), the game I'm in the middle of right now is my first immortal-level game. I'm winning at emperor level consistently (though I spend an embarrassing amount of time thinking things out each turn, especially mid to late game), so I decided to go for it. And? My immediate neighbors turned out to be Alexander and Hammurabi. Oi. Fortunately they were already fighting each other by the time I met them, and I chose to be aggressive and go after one of Hammurabi's cities very early. That's the advice I hear a lot around here when playing a higher level, and it worked out. I got one city. Then not long after that I decided to go for another Babylonian city with a second DOW. It had no walls, but alas, Hammurabi's units quickly became more advanced than mine, and I just couldn't do it. Funnily enough, though, Hammurabi offered some gold and the Shroud of Turin for peace, so it wasn't a total wash. But what the hell: by the beginning of the industrial age I had English redcoats and Hammurabi had a mechanized infantry corps! I know Hammurabi is considered overpowered and immediately gains whatever technology he boosts, but wow. Still, I've managed to get to near parity with him in terms of the number of technologies researched, and I note that he still hasn't launched a satellite. He may skip ahead to the end of the tech tree early, but he seems to leave a lot of stuff in the middle unresearched that are needed for a science win. I think Hammurabi should be tweaked so that a eureka enables him to unlock a technology in 1 turn, but only after he gets the prerequisite techs unlocked.

 

[Widdershins]

military engineered roads are available much earlier than railroads

Okay. Yeah. True! But it seems to me that when railroads become available, there is no reason to make a road tile. That expends a charge, right? I mean, if you have zero iron and zero coal in the atomic age for some reason, I guess you'd be stuck with making roads instead of rail, but really, a military engineer only has 2 measly charges unless you're England. Your point does answer my question, though. Thanks!

 

[Mahasona]

Okay. Yeah. True! But it seems to me that when railroads become available, there is no reason to make a road tile. That expends a charge, right? I mean, if you have zero iron and zero coal in the atomic age for some reason, I guess you'd be stuck with making roads instead of rail, but really, a military engineer only has 2 measly charges unless you're England. Your point does answer my question, though. Thanks!

Railroads don't use engineer charges, and with one coal and one iron, you can cover the map in them if you want. I have no idea why it works that way, but it does. Very handy if you're going domination and need the engineers for airfields anyway.

 

[Widdershins]

Railroads don't use engineer charges, and with one coal and one iron, you can cover the map in them if you want. I have no idea why it works that way, but it does. Very handy if you're going domination and need the engineers for airfields anyway.

Yeah, that's the thing: making railways expends no charge, while two measly road tiles ends an engineer's life. Because the 1 coal and 1 iron needed to make a rail tile is usually such a trivial cost, and traveling by rail is twice as fast as by roads, the inequity is glaring. I don't know about others, but once I can get going making railways I go whole hog connecting cities to each other, and military districts to city centers. By the time I'm done sorting out my own realm I find I need to start over with conquered cities, so the process really never ends. And air fields? Oh yes, there have been games when they've been essential.

That brings to mind a question. It seems to me that aircraft sitting in an aerodrome are very vulnerable. I always park them in city centers once they're made. I can't see the advantage of leaving them in the aerodrome unless you happen to have more aircraft than cities (a rare situation I should think). Air fields are a different matter, since they're generally used in places where one has no cities nearby, so parking aircraft in them is the only option.