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[Game On] Civilization 4

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Posts

  • juice for jesusjuice for jesus Registered User regular
    edited January 2010
    You can work every tile in your city's "fat x" (except mountains) if you have the population to do so. Are you getting unhappiness in your city or something?

    juice for jesus on
  • ArkanArkan Registered User regular
    edited January 2010
    yeah, it's probably unhappiness

    I think 4 or 5 is the base amount you get in the middle difficulties


    build buildings that provide happy faces or get luxury resources like silk, wine, gold, etc

    Arkan on
    Big, honkin' pile of WoW characters
    I think it's hard for someone not to rage at mario kart, while shouting "Fuck you Donkey Kong. Whose dick did you suck to get all those red shells?"
  • Serious_ScrubSerious_Scrub Registered User regular
    edited January 2010
    Also, the computer will automatically assign specialists, so check if extra population is going towards them

    Serious_Scrub on
  • TaminTamin Registered User regular
    edited January 2010
    Speaking of that, is there any way to tell it which specialists you want? Or at least, which ones you don't want? I (probably stupidly) really hate it when the game assigns a spy specialist.

    Tamin on
  • ArkanArkan Registered User regular
    edited January 2010
    Tamin wrote: »
    Speaking of that, is there any way to tell it which specialists you want? Or at least, which ones you don't want? I (probably stupidly) really hate it when the game assigns a spy specialist.

    You can tell it to shut off automation entirely, or emphasize production/food/gold. That's about it.

    Arkan on
    Big, honkin' pile of WoW characters
    I think it's hard for someone not to rage at mario kart, while shouting "Fuck you Donkey Kong. Whose dick did you suck to get all those red shells?"
  • MorkathMorkath Registered User, __BANNED USERS regular
    edited January 2010
    cool thanks for the advice guys

    I should probably be trying to learn this in the base game and not FFH2, but eh.

    Morkath on
  • MorkathMorkath Registered User, __BANNED USERS regular
    edited January 2010
    Aha, yeah that's what it was, didn't notice it was assigning citizens to things, and I had a couple missing from anger.

    Stupid governor, just turn off so I can learn!

    Morkath on
  • MyiagrosMyiagros Registered User regular
    edited January 2010
    Is there a better location to download FFH2? The website is absolutely brutal. All of last night I couldn't get it to open, my roommate had his download stop 3-4 times throughout the day. Already today I've had the download stop only 60MB in.

    Myiagros on
    iRevert wrote: »
    Because if you're going to attempt to squeeze that big black monster into your slot you will need to be able to take at least 12 inches or else you're going to have a bad time...
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  • Tiger BurningTiger Burning Dig if you will, the pictureRegistered User, SolidSaints Tube regular
    edited January 2010
    Does anybody know what the formula for spell resistance is in FFH2? I've looked around the FFH forums and haven't found it, but then the search function isn't the most sophisticated.

    Tiger Burning on
    Ain't no particular sign I'm more compatible with
  • FiarynFiaryn Omnicidal Madman Registered User regular
    edited January 2010
    Does anybody know what the formula for spell resistance is in FFH2? I've looked around the FFH forums and haven't found it, but then the search function isn't the most sophisticated.

    Pretty sure it's nothing more than a percentage chance of failure modified by any relevant abilities your Mage has. So, if you have the Bone Palace (50% Magic Resistance for all units produced in that city) and the enemy has the Tower of Alteration (-20% enemy magic resistance) than your unit has a net 30% chance of spells failing on him.

    Fiaryn on
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  • Tiger BurningTiger Burning Dig if you will, the pictureRegistered User, SolidSaints Tube regular
    edited January 2010
    Fiaryn wrote: »
    Does anybody know what the formula for spell resistance is in FFH2? I've looked around the FFH forums and haven't found it, but then the search function isn't the most sophisticated.

    Pretty sure it's nothing more than a percentage chance of failure modified by any relevant abilities your Mage has. So, if you have the Bone Palace (50% Magic Resistance for all units produced in that city) and the enemy has the Tower of Alteration (-20% enemy magic resistance) than your unit has a net 30% chance of spells failing on him.

    No, I'm pretty sure that it's more complicated than that, and that relative level plays a role. My harlequins' Taunt (+40% to resist) fails far more often than 60% of the time against equal-leveled units, and the success drops to <almost never> if they are Taunting a unit that is more than a level or two up on them. I don't think that strength is factored in, but I could be wrong.

    Tiger Burning on
    Ain't no particular sign I'm more compatible with
  • travathiantravathian Registered User regular
    edited January 2010
    I am also pretty sure that level difference effects various aspects of magic. I'd check the FFH forum on civfanatics, the user guide, or the civlopedia for more info.

    travathian on
  • Tiger BurningTiger Burning Dig if you will, the pictureRegistered User, SolidSaints Tube regular
    edited January 2010
    travathian wrote: »
    I am also pretty sure that level difference effects various aspects of magic. I'd check the FFH forum on civfanatics, the user guide, or the civlopedia for more info.

    The manual and civlopedia were no help. I thought that I skimmed some description of it on the civfanatics forum at some point, but I might be imagining that, and I can't find it again anyway.

    Tiger Burning on
    Ain't no particular sign I'm more compatible with
  • MorkathMorkath Registered User, __BANNED USERS regular
    edited January 2010
    Blech. So I had a nice lanun civilization going, was getting the hang of controlling the economy, when my two pirate coves spawned 4 pirate privateers, who then proceeded to decimate my unguarded shoreline taking out all my food/money sources.

    So much for lanun being allied with pirates.

    Morkath on
  • travathiantravathian Registered User regular
    edited January 2010
    Uh, all privateers are 'pirate' that is what makes them privateers. Are you sure they weren't from another civ? I know the AI freakin loves to use privateers to cause trouble, doubly so if you have a weak navy. And wtf, you are THE seafaring civ, how is it you have any unguarded shoreline at all?

    travathian on
  • Steel AngelSteel Angel Registered User regular
    edited January 2010
    So the Balseraph Mimics can be ridiculously fun.

    I had one that got ambushed by a giant spider and stole its hidden nationality ability. By the time I got tired of that game the sheer number of promotions it had covered up its level and how much experience it had.

    Steel Angel on
    Big Dookie wrote: »
    I found that tilting it doesn't work very well, and once I started jerking it, I got much better results.

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  • MorkathMorkath Registered User, __BANNED USERS regular
    edited January 2010
    travathian wrote: »
    Uh, all privateers are 'pirate' that is what makes them privateers. Are you sure they weren't from another civ? I know the AI freakin loves to use privateers to cause trouble, doubly so if you have a weak navy. And wtf, you are THE seafaring civ, how is it you have any unguarded shoreline at all?

    Because I had just gotten to sailing, my two explorers got nuked exploring, and my drowned were dealing with some goblins who were encroaching on my northern border. I was only a hundred turns or so into the game.

    And yeah they weren't from another civ, they popped in my right in front of port town, next to the two pirate coves.

    Morkath on
  • travathiantravathian Registered User regular
    edited January 2010
    I guess I am not understanding the complaint then. Are you under the impression that being Lanun that pirates won't attack you? Are you under the impression that your pirate coves actually spawned these pirates? Neither is true. Barbarians/pirates spawn from areas of the map uncovered or within the fog of war. So they may have spawned outside your field of view and moved into it. Also, unless you opened up Wordlbuilder I'm not sure how you would know if those ships were from opposing civs or the barbarian AI, as they are nationless by design. It is entirely possible one of the AIs had already gotten to optics.

    If some how you really do think they spawned from the cove then post a save game over at the mod forum for civfanatics and list it as a bug so someone can check into it.

    Oh, and being Lanun, you should beeline optics. With all your port cities, every tech/building/unit down that path is useful to you.

    travathian on
  • MorkathMorkath Registered User, __BANNED USERS regular
    edited January 2010
    travathian wrote: »
    I guess I am not understanding the complaint then. Are you under the impression that being Lanun that pirates won't attack you? Are you under the impression that your pirate coves actually spawned these pirates? Neither is true. Barbarians/pirates spawn from areas of the map uncovered or within the fog of war. So they may have spawned outside your field of view and moved into it. Also, unless you opened up Wordlbuilder I'm not sure how you would know if those ships were from opposing civs or the barbarian AI, as they are nationless by design. It is entirely possible one of the AIs had already gotten to optics.

    If some how you really do think they spawned from the cove then post a save game over at the mod forum for civfanatics and list it as a bug so someone can check into it.

    Oh, and being Lanun, you should beeline optics. With all your port cities, every tech/building/unit down that path is useful to you.

    Sorry I should have mentioned I am messing around with the wild mana mod. When the pirate coves hit third tier they spawn privateers.
    When the game starts it tells you that you have made peace with the pirates. But it doesn't seem to be working, I sent a few ships out, and was being attacked every turn by 2-3 pirate ships, I doubt the AI has that many completly covering the globe on a mostly ground map.
    I guess I can check with the world editor tommorrow to find out.

    Morkath on
  • RizziRizzi Sydney, Australia.Registered User regular
    edited January 2010
    Can someone explain how the specialists work? I really don't feel I understand them at all.

    Rizzi on
  • chipmanchipman Registered User regular
    edited January 2010
    Rizzi wrote: »
    Can someone explain how the specialists work? I really don't feel I understand them at all.

    Basically a specialist is a citizen that isn't working a square surrounding your city and is instead within your city doing something else.

    Different specialists produce different things. Artists primarily produce culture, engineers produce hammers for production, merchants produce gold, scientists produce science and priests produce a wierd mixture of stuff that I forget.

    Each specialist also produces great person points and also influence what great person you will get.

    Adding onto that, you won't be able to get specialists until you put buildings in the city that allow you to assign them. A temple lets you turn one citizen into a priest for instance.

    Basically it's mostly more helpful to work the land, so specialists tend not to pop up in your city if you're letting the game manage it for you until quite late game when there are less squares to work. I'd advise using the buttons to "emphasise production/food/commerce" in order to let the game decide when to make specialists.

    A final hint: Specialists are great for producing a "great person farm" city. Just give it as much food as possible, so that it grows really fast and tick "emphasise great person" in the city screen. In the city build things that let you assign more specialists (or use the civic caste system). This will net you tons of great people, and if you don't need them you can just make them settle back IN the great people city to help it further production of them even more.


    EDIT: I think this is my longest post yet! (out of about 5)

    chipman on
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  • mrt144mrt144 King of the Numbernames Registered User regular
    edited January 2010
    chipman wrote: »
    Rizzi wrote: »
    Can someone explain how the specialists work? I really don't feel I understand them at all.

    Basically a specialist is a citizen that isn't working a square surrounding your city and is instead within your city doing something else.

    Different specialists produce different things. Artists primarily produce culture, engineers produce hammers for production, merchants produce gold, scientists produce science and priests produce a wierd mixture of stuff that I forget.

    Each specialist also produces great person points and also influence what great person you will get.

    Adding onto that, you won't be able to get specialists until you put buildings in the city that allow you to assign them. A temple lets you turn one citizen into a priest for instance.

    Basically it's mostly more helpful to work the land, so specialists tend not to pop up in your city if you're letting the game manage it for you until quite late game when there are less squares to work. I'd advise using the buttons to "emphasise production/food/commerce" in order to let the game decide when to make specialists.

    A final hint: Specialists are great for producing a "great person farm" city. Just give it as much food as possible, so that it grows really fast and tick "emphasise great person" in the city screen. In the city build things that let you assign more specialists (or use the civic caste system). This will net you tons of great people, and if you don't need them you can just make them settle back IN the great people city to help it further production of them even more.


    EDIT: I think this is my longest post yet! (out of about 5)

    There are strategies that can yield huge benefits where you run primarily specialists and turn everything you can into farms,mines and workshops. Early Representation through Pyramids allows you get away with not building much infrastructure to compensate for a bloated empire.

    mrt144 on
  • Zombie HeroZombie Hero Registered User regular
    edited January 2010
    Pyramids & Early Rep + Caste System is a great combo to try out when first experimenting with specialists. Start with a Philosophical Leader and put tons of great scientists in your capital. Experiment with bulbing, GAs, etc. You can also change specialist type to mess around with Great Person generation.

    Drop down a level if you have to, but it will show you the early ropes of specialists.

    Zombie Hero on
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  • The Fourth EstateThe Fourth Estate Registered User regular
    edited January 2010
    mrt144 wrote: »
    chipman wrote: »
    Rizzi wrote: »
    Can someone explain how the specialists work? I really don't feel I understand them at all.

    Basically a specialist is a citizen that isn't working a square surrounding your city and is instead within your city doing something else.

    Different specialists produce different things. Artists primarily produce culture, engineers produce hammers for production, merchants produce gold, scientists produce science and priests produce a wierd mixture of stuff that I forget.

    Each specialist also produces great person points and also influence what great person you will get.

    Adding onto that, you won't be able to get specialists until you put buildings in the city that allow you to assign them. A temple lets you turn one citizen into a priest for instance.

    Basically it's mostly more helpful to work the land, so specialists tend not to pop up in your city if you're letting the game manage it for you until quite late game when there are less squares to work. I'd advise using the buttons to "emphasise production/food/commerce" in order to let the game decide when to make specialists.

    A final hint: Specialists are great for producing a "great person farm" city. Just give it as much food as possible, so that it grows really fast and tick "emphasise great person" in the city screen. In the city build things that let you assign more specialists (or use the civic caste system). This will net you tons of great people, and if you don't need them you can just make them settle back IN the great people city to help it further production of them even more.


    EDIT: I think this is my longest post yet! (out of about 5)

    There are strategies that can yield huge benefits where you run primarily specialists and turn everything you can into farms,mines and workshops. Early Representation through Pyramids allows you get away with not building much infrastructure to compensate for a bloated empire.

    It does more than that. It decouples research from the bar and rewards you for expansion: it's the best way to maintain research when playing for domination as each city with a library becomes the equivalent of the great library. Having the slider at zero means you can support more troops and put off building courthouses for longer.

    EDIT: My earliest ever space race victory was with Caesar on a huge map going for domination. I missed out on getting the dom, so I switched to science. I had so many science specialists running with 58% of the map that I ended up smashing my previous best by over 30 years.

    The Fourth Estate on
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  • jothkijothki Registered User regular
    edited January 2010
    Morkath wrote: »
    travathian wrote: »
    I guess I am not understanding the complaint then. Are you under the impression that being Lanun that pirates won't attack you? Are you under the impression that your pirate coves actually spawned these pirates? Neither is true. Barbarians/pirates spawn from areas of the map uncovered or within the fog of war. So they may have spawned outside your field of view and moved into it. Also, unless you opened up Wordlbuilder I'm not sure how you would know if those ships were from opposing civs or the barbarian AI, as they are nationless by design. It is entirely possible one of the AIs had already gotten to optics.

    If some how you really do think they spawned from the cove then post a save game over at the mod forum for civfanatics and list it as a bug so someone can check into it.

    Oh, and being Lanun, you should beeline optics. With all your port cities, every tech/building/unit down that path is useful to you.

    Sorry I should have mentioned I am messing around with the wild mana mod. When the pirate coves hit third tier they spawn privateers.
    When the game starts it tells you that you have made peace with the pirates. But it doesn't seem to be working, I sent a few ships out, and was being attacked every turn by 2-3 pirate ships, I doubt the AI has that many completly covering the globe on a mostly ground map.
    I guess I can check with the world editor tommorrow to find out.

    It's probably the fact that they're privateers, which means they can attack without breaking a peace treaty. You're at peace, but the privateers are false flagging and attack anyway.

    jothki on
  • travathiantravathian Registered User regular
    edited January 2010
    Were you in first place? I know the other civs that start at peace with barbarians have certain restrictions, one of them being if they start getting too powerful the treaty is broken. Maybe the wild mana mod has something like this for the lanun.

    travathian on
  • KitsurubamiKitsurubami Winnipeg, MBRegistered User regular
    edited January 2010
    Is it imperative that I purchase the expansions in order to enjoy Civ4?

    The base game is $20 on Steam, while the bundle with everything is about $35 or so. I'm not really willing to spend the latter on a series I haven't tried before.

    Is it simply more maps, nations and features, or are there any core gameplay changes that make the base Civ4 experience much better?

    Kitsurubami on
  • enlightenedbumenlightenedbum Registered User regular
    edited January 2010
    New stuff: completely revamped (and no longer useless) espionage, corporations, great generals. A few new techs, units, civs, etc. Everyone gets a unique building in addition to unit. Plus you get a sample of the fantastic Fall From Heaven mod with BtS.

    enlightenedbum on
    Self-righteousness is incompatible with coalition building.
  • KitsurubamiKitsurubami Winnipeg, MBRegistered User regular
    edited January 2010
    Sounds like a reasonably good deal for an extra $15. Thank you, I'll give it a go.

    Here's hoping that the French are just as powerful in Civ4 as they were in Civ3.

    Kitsurubami on
  • Kris_xKKris_xK Registered User regular
    edited January 2010
    I would say that BtS (Beyond the Sword) is essential. It includes (I think?) all the gameplay changes from Warlords, just none of the scenarios.

    Kris_xK on
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  • Zombie HeroZombie Hero Registered User regular
    edited January 2010
    Sounds like a reasonably good deal for an extra $15. Thank you, I'll give it a go.

    Here's hoping that the French are just as powerful in Civ4 as they were in Civ3.

    If you play as the french, you'll definitely want the expansions (just BTS), because Napoleon and De Gualle are both wonderful. Especially Nappy.

    Zombie Hero on
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  • mrt144mrt144 King of the Numbernames Registered User regular
    edited January 2010
    Kris_xK wrote: »
    I would say that BtS (Beyond the Sword) is essential. It includes (I think?) all the gameplay changes from Warlords, just none of the scenarios.

    This is correct.

    mrt144 on
  • enlightenedbumenlightenedbum Registered User regular
    edited January 2010
    Sounds like a reasonably good deal for an extra $15. Thank you, I'll give it a go.

    Here's hoping that the French are just as powerful in Civ4 as they were in Civ3.

    If you play as the french, you'll definitely want the expansions (just BTS), because Napoleon and De Gualle are both wonderful. Especially Nappy.

    The musketeer is... not so much.

    Rome is easily the easiest to play. Darius is probably second. Or the Dutch. Good God, the Dutch.

    enlightenedbum on
    Self-righteousness is incompatible with coalition building.
  • mrt144mrt144 King of the Numbernames Registered User regular
    edited January 2010
    Sounds like a reasonably good deal for an extra $15. Thank you, I'll give it a go.

    Here's hoping that the French are just as powerful in Civ4 as they were in Civ3.

    If you play as the french, you'll definitely want the expansions (just BTS), because Napoleon and De Gualle are both wonderful. Especially Nappy.

    The musketeer is... not so much.

    Rome is easily the easiest to play. Darius is probably second. Or the Dutch. Good God, the Dutch.

    Rome, definitely the easiest to play. The Praetorian, despite what some diehard Rome players don't want to admit, is the best unit in the game for the longest amount of time. If you're using your Praetorians regularly you'll be able to take down maces with them and can actually use them instead of maces. It's ridiculous.

    Not to mention the traits and the buildings being synergistic.

    The Musketeer is really hamstrung by the fact that who the fuck has enough time to build muskets?

    mrt144 on
  • KitsurubamiKitsurubami Winnipeg, MBRegistered User regular
    edited January 2010
    I was looking through the list of leaders, and I'm kind of surprised that Stalin was on there.

    Not to say that he's not a notable historical figure, but he's pretty much the last guy that I'd want running my country.

    Then again, he's hardly the only bastard out of the available bunch.

    Kitsurubami on
  • Professor PhobosProfessor Phobos Registered User regular
    edited January 2010
    Huayna Capac is pretty badass as well.

    Professor Phobos on
  • travathiantravathian Registered User regular
    edited January 2010
    mrt144 wrote: »
    Kris_xK wrote: »
    I would say that BtS (Beyond the Sword) is essential. It includes (I think?) all the gameplay changes from Warlords, just none of the scenarios.

    This is correct.

    BtS is a must have. I wouldn't even bother playing vanilla Civ4, and Warlords is pointless. All of the great mods use BtS features.

    travathian on
  • MorkathMorkath Registered User, __BANNED USERS regular
    edited January 2010
    travathian wrote: »
    Were you in first place? I know the other civs that start at peace with barbarians have certain restrictions, one of them being if they start getting too powerful the treaty is broken. Maybe the wild mana mod has something like this for the lanun.

    Yeah I believe wild mana has that feature, but no, I wasn't even in the top 50%. I believe I was second to last out of the 4 people I had made contact with. I was spending more time messing around with city control than trying to win.

    Morkath on
  • jothkijothki Registered User regular
    edited January 2010
    Anyone else wish there was a version of Fantastic Worlds for Civilization 4? The space overhaul in BtS and FFH2 are both neat, but I want access to a wider variety of wacky, questionably balanced goodness.

    jothki on
  • Zombie HeroZombie Hero Registered User regular
    edited January 2010
    The musketeer's strength is being able to provide reinforcements to the front line. Nappy, with his organized, usually has a big empire, so the quick movement is helpful. Even still, The Musket is outclassed by the oromo warrior, and muskets aren't as prolific as previous incarnations (Riflemen are the show, now).

    Even with the mediocre (but not useless) UU, France is still a strong civ with good leaders and the UB ain't half bad. Not the best civ, but still strong.

    Zombie Hero on
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