Yet another noob: need some advices please

[jhaquo]

I started a couple of days ago with civilisation 4(and this game genre at the same time). It was pretty overwhelming at first but im getting it(i won couple of games as a chieftain, weeee).
Anyway, there are some things i still dont understand.
First, when i have a city from another civilisation almost surrounded by my borders but the city doesnt flip... What can i do for it to flip please? I tried adding artists in the nearest cities and producing "culture" but that doesnt seem to work.
Second, I like nukes, no, I LOVE nukes but i dont understand that sdi program. I can have like 20nukes ready on a couple of different cities and when i start a war, on those 20 nukes, maybe 4 will hit if not less. I tought the sdi program was 50% ? does that % raise under certain conditions? Is there any way to lower/shutdown the sdi project before an attack or something?
Another thing, i see in the trade menu you can give cities and get cities, but i never saw an AI ready to give a city, even when friendly. What are the conditions to be able to request a city?

Well, thats it for the moment, i think
Thanks for your time

 

[futurehermit]

SDI is 75% iirc

The thing with nukes is you want to beeline Fission so that you get it prior to the enemy getting bomb shelters (and their own nukes).

With city-flipping it can be difficult. If the AI has a lot of units in it and it has a lot of culture of its own it may never flip. To flip a city you want to flip it earlier in the game and be pushing out a lot more culture than your opponent (creative, holy city, library, theatre, monasteries, culture bomb, running artists, etc. etc. as much as you can generate).

The AI will generally never give you a city unless they are completely crippled, or the city was yours you lost it in a war to them then you started beating up on them and they will give you your cities back for peace. But for the most part they will go to their grave before they will give you a city.

 

[MrCynical]

First, when i have a city from another civilisation almost surrounded by my borders but the city doesnt flip... What can i do for it to flip please? I tried adding artists in the nearest cities and producing "culture" but that doesnt seem to work.

You seem to be doing the right thing. The best you can do is increase the culture in the surrounding cities and wait. The flip chance is never much more than 5 or 6% a turn, so you may have to wait a bit.

Second, I like nukes, no, I LOVE nukes but i dont understand that sdi program. I can have like 20nukes ready on a couple of different cities and when i start a war, on those 20 nukes, maybe 4 will hit if not less. I tought the sdi program was 50% ? does that % raise under certain conditions? Is there any way to lower/shutdown the sdi project before an attack or something?

The SDI has a 75% intercept chance under all circumstances so 4 out of 20 is far from implausible. There's not much you can do other than attack a civ before it's built though.

Another thing, i see in the trade menu you can give cities and get cities, but i never saw an AI ready to give a city, even when friendly. What are the conditions to be able to request a city?

An AI that you're at war with will sometimes be willing to give a city for peace if they are losing badly. They won't trade their cities while at peace though.

 

[jhaquo]

so you cant takeover the world peacefully, if you wanna take over cities you have to dirty your hands :s?

 

[MrCynical]

It's certainly a lot faster and more reliable than trying to culture flip them, though there are occasions when peace is preferable.

 

[futurehermit]

If you look in the succession game section there was a huge multi-game thing going on where they were trying to win domination purely by culture-flipping. You might want to check that out!!!

 

[Cam_H]

^ Good call

Just the links f.y.i.;

RB29a - Cultural Extermination

RB29b - Cultural Extermination

RB29c - Cultural Extermination

RB29d - Cultural Extermination​

 

[ParadigmShifter]

Those are conquest wins (not domination) if I remember correctly. Crazy stuff.

EDIT: And with no attacking outside their own borders too I believe.

 

[Figaro]

Isn't it possible to disable the SDI by capturing the city in which it was built?

And be glad you're not playing Civ2 - the SDI there had 100% stop-rate. Remember how the AI didn't know that and would often waste 20-30 nukes on one city?!

 

[skallben]

SDI got several possible counters, spies can delay it being build and with BTS you now got tactical nukes to load on submarines and they don't stand nearly the same chance to get intercepted.