Many many questions have been posted since I last had a chance to answer some of them... Serves me right for starting a MP game at 10pm and having it end up as a 4 hour event!
Khaim said:
I havea nitpicky question. It's apparent from your city screens that you're getting a fair number of bonuses that don't really show up. For example, the Mecca size 7 screen under today's update shows you with 12 health, and only five from food resources. One is probably from the river; is the other 6 your difficulty-based freebie? Same question for happiness; I count a mere 2 , but you have 9.
Further, a few city screens show a lot more hammers than are on the map. On the same screen, Mecca has 15 hammers from its tiles, but is putting 33 towards Pyramids. Even assuming you have 2x from stone, that's an extra 3 hammers from somewhere. Likewise, the first Damascus screen on the next page shows 8 hammers when I see 7 on the map. The next shot shows 26 hammers coming from 11 on the map, although you have 2x again from Spiritual. Where's all the extra production coming from?
You're right, sometimes the numbers don't appear to match up. Partly that is due to some civic effects taking place that aren't immediately visible (like Organized Religion's production boost), but there are other effects as well. The main reason why the shield numbers don't match up is because in a lot of the screenshots, the overflow from the previous build is being counted in the number (if I have 10 shields of overflow in a city that usually gets 15 shields/turn, it will display as 25 shields/turn for that turn). That's what's mostly going on. Regarding the health, you get +2 health for founding a city on fresh water, and +0.4 health for each forest tile in a city's radius (that's probably what caused that).
admiral-bell said:
when will ths be finished?
It's a seven-part Walkthrough, so I guess that means the last part will be on Monday. Like I said, it's a full game of Civ4!
Mat777 said:
Mat was in the MP game we were playing last night. But hey, don't complain to me, Mat - you declared war on ME!
thejuicygoober said:
Out of everything you did in your guide, there is only two things you did that I don't understand your reasons for doing. Why did you keep Hastings and York? I thought that with the higher matience costs of Civ4, you would have razed them due to their lack of usefulness (being in such unproductive lands)
And I know you wanted to take out Elizabeth but why did you settle Najran/ use a culture bomb in the sourthern unproductive lands (instead of expanding north). It seems you could have take out Elizabeth without Najran by attacking from your orginal borders and settled Najran in a more fruitful spot north before the AI claims it.
Hastings was worthwhile to keep because there was a corn resource there and a lot of water tiles. Even one food resource is more than sufficient to create a strong fishing village. It was pulling about 70 beakers/turn by the end of my game - by no means a waste! York's land wasn't great, but I needed the city to secure a copper source and grab the furs. It was never anything special, but even junk cities are useful for grabbing key resources.
Secondly, of course I could have killed Victoria without using a culture bomb there. But remember, I'm also playing this game to demonstrate various different things, and I wanted to show people what you can do with the Great Artists. Culture flips are rare, so I wanted to document one taking place. Finally - to be honest, there were no resources I didn't already have nearby to the north. The ones I needed were actually down there in the tundra! So from a resource perspective, it also made sense to head down there first. Not to mention strategically securing my southern flank.
ThERat said:
1. flips are really back, maybe not an immedtiate flip, but nevertheless, they are back. does that also mean, if you capture a core city from a cultures-strong civ, that it would revolt sooner or later and flip? does sound like it.
2. culture bombs: seem too powerful to me, maybe could be softened, if the AI knows how to use them. Do they use this tool?
3. war: you can now actually see the amount and type of enemies in a city. like spies for free. artillery seems again way powerful, just as a combo or arty/Cav or tanks could shred any town in Civ3.
again, is the AI capable of launching the same intelligent assaults?
1) NO, a city you capture in war will never flip back to its original owner. Cities captured in war will not flip back. Period. Everyone hated that feature in Civ3, so it's not something that will ever take place in Civ4. Now the city you take may be uselessly unhappy, but it won't flip.
2) The culture bombs are only really strong when used in the right places (areas that have little to no culture built up). If you go back and look at my second culture bomb, you'll see a more typical result. On the other hand, I have yet to see an AI civ use a culture bomb, so that's one area where the AI can still be improved upon.
3) This is simply a different dynamic in Civ4. You can see the enemies in the cities if you move next to them. It doesn't really change the game all that much, since you have to be next to the cities to see the enemies usually. The reason why I could often see the enemies ahead of time here is because I had Hinduism in most of the English cities.
The Caltrop said:
1-So, you seem to have a lot fewer cities in 4 than you would in civ 3 by AD 430 . Other than the penalty imposed for having cities, why are there so few settlements in your possession?
2-Catapults are in danger of return-fire now?
3-How is it that upon conquering York, you have full culture-borders, but when you ake London, its borders are 1x1?
4-Great People seem... pleasant.
5-You razed Nottingham, the Confucian holy city. Two questions:
5a: Does that automatically make Confucianism dead? Or, can a religion carry on without its holy city? Is it advantagous to destroy an enemy-religion's holy city (to reduce income of an enemy civ/stunt that religion's growth)?
5b: If it dies (by the conquest or in general) can it restore itself? Or is a religion dead permanenetly in the game once crushed?
6-You seem to be encouraging a multi-religious state... Is it good to have multiple religions in your empire? Only if they are all founded by you? I'm still trying to understand the whole dynamic religions bring to Civ 4...
7-Do civs still have that silly obsession with colnising every nook and cranny of the world?
8-Do leaders remember things permenantly? By which I mean; if you did not defeat England, would Victoria eventually forget her grievances?
So many questions!
1) Why are there few cities? Well, where else would I have put a city? I had the land covered decently with the cities I had. Of course I could have crammed in some more cities, but there wouldn't have been much of a point to that; ICS strategies generally are counterproductive in Civ4. I should have placed Baghdad on the coast and placed a 5th city between it and Damascus, but otherwise I was happy with my city spacing.
2) Well, cats have to attack in order to do damage, so yes. They can bombard city defenses without attacking though.
3) I didn't have full borders at York. What you're seeing is actually the borders from my CAPITAL, which has a ton of culture and is close by.
4) OK.
5) Religions don't disappear without their holy city. So long as one city in the world has that religion in it, it will still exist. However, a holy city can never be rebuilt - once it's gone, it's gone forever. No one will ever build the Confucian shrine in this game.
6) Multiple religions won't hurt you. They open up the possibility for additonal shrine income, allow you to build extra temples/monasteries/cathedrals, and add extra happiness under Freedom of Religion. Now, is it worth prioritizing a second religion over doing something else? That's a question that can only be answered in the context of a specific game.
7) Yes, to some extent, but not as bad as in Civ3. If the AI didn't expand aggressively, the game would be too easy (see Civ1 and Civ2).
8) Leaders tend to have a long memory. If you help them they'll remember it, and if you don't, they will too. Vicky and I would have had very bad relations essentially permanently if I had made peace with her. But declaring war on her and razing her holy city will have that kind of effect...
Aussie Lurker said:
@Sullla. Noticed how you mention the danger of having 'homogeneous' stacks, but then you sent out a pretty homogeneous stack of elephants and cats. Did you only do this because you were pretty CERTAIN that Vicky was stuffed? Would have loved it if she had a suprise up her sleeve ! Fantastic walkthrough, I am TRULY loving it !
I attacked the way I did because I knew what techs Victoria had (from using the F4 technology screen) and she didn't have Construction for cats. Furthermore, the only pre-medieval unit that can do any kind of damage to elephants are spearmen, and I knew Vicky wouldn't be able to build them once I took her copper mine on turn 1 of the war. Therefore, there was no real danger is using a stack based upon mostly elephants. If her copper had been right in London, I would have mixed in some axes to take out the English spears. And yes, the AI has surprised me before. You'll see later on in the Walkthrough that the AI *WILL* use cats for suicide damage, and use them to bombard city defenses too. They certainly aren't up to the same level as a human, but they aren't totally clueless either.
ThERat said:
actually if you can see which units the enemy has, that gives a HUGE benefit. Please tell me that this counts only for low difficulty levels. It would be so anticlimatic IMHO
Not sure I understand this one... I can see the units in Vicky's cities because either 1) my religion is in them and I have line-of-sight in the city, or 2) I have a big stack of units right next door to it. There's really no need for the units in a city to be a secret, when you think about it.
Roland Johansen said:
Can you still disband cities in Civ4 or must you decide on capture if you destroy or keep the city. If disbanding is still allowed, is it linked to the pregame setting of no city razing.
How does ship bombarding work? Can ships still bombard land units? The artillery bombard attack is balanced because in the attack they can be lost (but do lots of collateral damage).
If culture flipping is switched of in the pregame settings, what game effect would be left for the city of Hastings? There is also a pregame setting called City Flipping after conquest (which seems to be switched of in your game). Does this mean that if a city is conquered, then it can never flip or has this pregame switch some other meaning?
Why can't the city of Elephantine flip?. In Civ3, if a city didn't control all of its city-tiles, then it could flip (under some conditions). What are the rules in Civ4? If no wars arise, will the natural development of culture mean that Elephantine will reclaim some tiles currently controlled by your culture? Is there some (easy) formula that you know that determines which culture controls a certain tile?
Currently, there is no abandoning cities in Civ4. That may be added in later on, but for now you have to decide when capturing a city whether to keep it or raze it. Ships cannot bombard land units; they can, however, reduce the defenses of a city in the same way that siege units can (I'll have more to say on this later in the Walkthrough).
Without city flipping on, Hastings would have simply been a useless city. It would have revolted constantly and been unable to work any of its tiles, since they would all have been in my borders. Of course, I would have conquered it soon enough anyway... No City Flipping after Conquest is the default option for a game; it means that a city captured in battle can never flip back to the original owner (remember, everyone hated that in Civ3). If you change that option, you can re-enable the Civ3 city flip back to the original owner. I have yet to see someone turn that on.
Elephantine doesn't have a chance in the world of flipping. You have to have a dominant percentage of culture in the city's center tile (the one that the city is actually on) for it to have any chance of flipping. Elephantine held onto all of its first-ring tiles, so it's in no danger. There IS a formula that determines who gets control of each tile, but I don't it off the top of my head. You *CAN* check how much culture for each civ is on each tile by pressing and holding Shift and then mousing over tiles. That will display how much culture for each civ is present on each tile - whoever has the most controls it!
More good questions, I'll do my best to keep answering them.
Would have loved it if she had a suprise up her sleeve
![[party]](/images/smilies/partytime.gif "Party [party]")
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