Apolyton Civ4 PREVIEW (By Solver) - Part 3 online

[Xmudder]

Originally posted by Solver
They appear similarly, but you must have Open Borders for that. Closed borders = no trade routes with that civ. That is the biggest incetive to sign Open Borders, really. That, and the relations boost it gives you.

The Mercantilism civic shuts down all foreign trade routes. It's another of the civics that I really like. My favorite civics (not neccessarily to run, but as a concept) are the ones that have both an upside and a downside, like Mercantilism here. When I discover the tech for it, I always sit and ponder whether I want to switch or not.

Mercantilism + Caste System + Representation is a powerful combination. I'm just not sure which is better - a free Enginner from my forge + mercantilism, or foreign trade + Free trade civic.

How many shields does the engineer produce anyway?

And is specialist production increased by Libraries, Forges, Theaters and Organized Religion?

Originally posted by Solver
Each city will automatically create trade routes where most profitable. The number of trade routes depends on several factors. Early in the game, a likely scenario is this: you found a second city that is connected to your first. Both cities have a +1 trade route, but the new city increases maintenance by 3, so you have -1 net.

A second city may cost you 3 gold???? And it goes up from there???

Yin, where are you? Want some Ketchup?

[Aks K]

Originally posted by Solver
The Mercantilism civic shuts down all foreign trade routes. It's another of the civics that I really like. My favorite civics (not neccessarily to run, but as a concept) are the ones that have both an upside and a downside, like Mercantilism here. When I discover the tech for it, I always sit and ponder whether I want to switch or not.

I also see merchantilism as a good civic but I am still wondering about state property.

Citizens produce 1 shield. Are you at liberty to tell how many hammers an Engineer produce? My guess is 3-4. Does improvements affect Engineers or are their bonus added last? Does the +50% production speed from wonders (Industrious), +25% production to buildings (organized religion), ... apply to the engineers?

Thanks for answering all our questions.

Aks K

[The_Aussie_Lurker]

Which is what I REALLY loved about all the Social Engineering choices in SMAC. I think all of them had positive/negative impacts beyond mere 'opportunity costs'. So Environmentalism was good for your Planet Rating, but hurt your population growth, and I think Police State reduced unit maintainance costs, but hurt your efficiency (probably would be reflected in Civ4 as reduced shields/hammers and increased city maintainance). How many of the civics options, at a guess, would you say fit that kind of 'upside/downside' category?

Oh and, back on trade again, does having an alliance or other diplomatic agreement boost the value of your trade routes? Also, you don't require any kind of resource/tech trade in order for foreign trade routes to form-just Open Borders?

My last question for now is, are there improvements/wonders which serve different functions under different civics choices (either completely different or just 'supplemental')?

Thanks for all your answers Solver, they really improve my understanding of the game!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

[ajbera]

How is the time progression in the game? What are the yearly intervals between turns in the ancient era up through the modern era?

[alva]

Probably much the same as before, perhaps there are some small adjustments seeing as, IRC there are less turns in game, other than that i see no real reason to change it, none that I can think of anyway.

[GeoModder]

If I'm not mistaken, it could be that 2 year intervals continue all the way to 1980-90...

Darn Alva, why are you up on a monday morning? No job today?

[alva]

Nope, only have to go to school this evening (though I am "working" on school project at the moment...just not very hard )

[MeaCulpa]

Are the days really over when we built roads/rr on every tile ? At the end of the IGN preview video, you can see some modern age cities, and the squares all have at least roads, and most are optically polluted by improvements (mostly towns). Maybe old habbits just don't die.

Perhaps you have answered that one already, but since ind/phil is out of question: which civ is good ? I know it depends on playing style and personal preference, but do you guys (solver and markg) have any favorites ? A good mix of usefull traits and a powerfull UU ? Is there anything every beta tester wanted to play in MP ? I just can't decide....

[kolpo]

Originally posted by Solver
They appear similarly, but you must have Open Borders for that. Closed borders = no trade routes with that civ. That is the biggest incetive to sign Open Borders, really. That, and the relations boost it gives you.

The Mercantilism civic shuts down all foreign trade routes. It's another of the civics that I really like. My favorite civics (not neccessarily to run, but as a concept) are the ones that have both an upside and a downside, like Mercantilism here. When I discover the tech for it, I always sit and ponder whether I want to switch or not.

But if you have enough cities shall you then still have internal trade routes?

How much more profitable are foreign trade routes when combared with internal ones?

[GeoModder]

Even if the trade income with foreign cities is the same as your own on a city-by-city base, it's still a multitude then the internal trade income due to the (probably) higher number of foreign cities you potentially have a trade route with.

Man was that a difficult sentence.

[Martinus]

Yeah. Profitability is probably dependent on the size/richness of both cities and the distance (the bigger the distance, the larger profitability). Possibly, each city having different resources factors into it as well.

Unless the other civilizations are all lagging behind and have small cities, having foreign trade routes is preferable due to simple maths - if a city can have, say, 3 trade routes, there is a higher chance to get a better result if you choose 3 best destinations out of X+Y number of cities than just out of X (where X is a number of your cities, and Y a number of foreign cities in game).

Of course, this also means that if you are the richest, most developed civ and everybody around you are undeveloped barbarians, it is the best tactics to close your borders and pursue mercantilism, like real world China (of course China did that until it was too late ).

[Harrier UK]

Originally posted by Xmudder

One other concern: Given that you have to protect your workers and settlers from wild animals, and given that settlers and workers have a move of 2, how do you protect them? Warriors only move one and Scouts only have a strength of 1? Chariots?

Your defended worker finishes building a road. It moves to the next tile, has 1 movement point left so starts building the next road. The defender moves to defend the worker.

If you want to move two tiles and have not got a military unit with 2 movement points - well someone else can answer that one.

Even if you have to move 1 tile per turn with an escort (and I assume this will only be necessary in unclaimed lland or on the edge of your borders) - at least when you reach the destination tile you maybe able to move and build in the same turn.

Edit : Just noticed lockstep and Deepo have more or less said the same thing.

[catorulz]

I haven't heard anyone talk about Civ traits yet. Are they the same from Civ3? Are they balanced? Would love to hear some comments. Thanks.

[GeoModder]

They can be found in the pre-release info on both 'Poly and CivFanatics.