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**snoopy369** · February 10, 2008, 18:39

Re: Several N00b questions...

Originally posted by davypi

1) Can you irrigate tundra or not? When I put workers there, there is no farming option, but I've found irrigated tundra in AI territory.

Only tundra on a river (or "fresh water source") is workable in any fashion (other than tearing down forest).

2) What is a "free specalist" as defined by the Statue of Liberty and Great Library wonders? Does this simply mean they don't need food or is there a different meaning here?

You have it essentially right, yes. A free specialist is an extra specialist that doesn't need food; you are still limited by the specialist counts you normally are limited to per type.

3) Does a UN resolution force you to adopt a certain civic or does it stack with the similar existing civic. For example, could I Emicapation from the UN but still have slavery, or am I stuck with what the UN gives me? Can you propose a vote to undo a UN resolution?

It forces you to change civics (with no anarchy penalty). If you are the UN leader, you can put it back up for vote if you like; or you can refuse to accept the resolution (ONLY in BTS) at a diplo and happiness cost.

4) Is there a way to build a customized leader? For example, what if I want to a play a Civ that is Aggresive and Creative, but has the Camel Archer as its special unit? Or choose different starting techs?

In BtS, choose "unrestricted leaders" and then choose the leader with the UU or tech you want, and pick your own traits. Otherwise you have to mod it in (not hard).

5) Can you regrow forest? I can understand why all the other terraforming options were removed, but even hundres of years ago we knew enough about trees to know how to resow them.

Not intentionally; they grow randomly on unworked, unimproved tiles. It's there to force you to make a strategic decision as to whether or not you remove your forests early on.

6) Is there any way to sell or destroy a city building? For example, I accidentaly built a coal plant in a city that was already suffering from health problems. I would have liked to be able to delete the coal plant, but haven't found an option for it.

Nope, you build it you own it. However, I believe you will recover the health if you build another source of power (hydro, nuclear)

7a) What does it mean when a city building is "available for free"? How do the mechanics work?
7b) Does it come free when I build the city?
7c) What if I take over a city (either by culture or war)?
7d) Can a "free" improvement be destroyed in combat?
7e) If yes, can I rebuild it for "free"?

Assuming you're talking about something such as Stonehenge -> free monuments in every city, then the answer is that, forever or at least until it is not obsolete, each city that is owned by the owner of Stonehenge acts as if it has a monument in it (and appears to have one in its building list). It does not 'remove' a monument that is already built, but otherwise if the city changes hands it loses the monument (or, conversely, if Stonehenge changes hands). It comes free in every new city, whether built, captured, or otherwise. It cannot be destroyed by spies I don't think; otherwise it would be destroyed by losing the city (as you didn't actually build it in the first place) unless you built it before you got it free (and with monuments at least, you lose those always, as all culture-producing buildings are destroyed).

8) Does turning a Great Person into a specialist cost food or not? I can find nothing in the manual which states that it does, but I read something somewhere that seems to imply that they need food just like a regular specialist. To me, having to feed them seems a disadvantage because, as it is, it seems less likely that over the course of a full game you will get 4000 culture out of a Great Artist as a citizen than if you sacrifice him by making a great work. Adding a food cost to that makes the decision a no brainer.

A Great Person settled in a city is like a free specialist - in that it does not take any food - but it does not generate any great person points, either. Settling is a good idea in certain circumstances, not in others - it's a strategic decision, and depends on your civics (Representation makes it better, as you get 3 beakers per specialist, including settled GPs) and your other choices (one strategy is to build a Great Engineer city with 6-8 great engineers settled in it, rocking away at more wonders).

9) Are golden ages really worth the cost? Other than the Great Merchant, it seems like the special abilities of all the great people are worth more than what you get out of a Golden Age. I can see maybe paying two greats for the first one, but after that it seems like the focused spurt you get out of, say, a free tech and a free wonder, is more than what you get out of eight turns of bonus hammers and commerce. Is there some benefit you get out of a Golden Age that I am overlooking?

You're obviously talking about warlords or (regular) Civ4, as Beyond the Sword reduces the GP cost to one for the first GA (1,2,3,4, etc., not 2,3,4,5). BtS also introduces a few new bonuses:
1. Free civics changes in a GA (and religion).
2. Mausoleum of Mausolus - extends GA length by 50%
3. GP points increased by 100% (not sure if this is in earlier ones or not)

In BtS they're very much worth it, particularly for the free civics changes; in Warlords they are valuable, but not quite as much so (particularly as they cost more also). If you have a reasonably large civ, the bonus hammers and commerce is quite nice - you basically increase your output by about 40% and your commerce by about 30% typically. It works better with non-cottage strategies of course - one strat is to have cottages everywhere -> towns, there a GA only increases your tech by 20% or less; but in a food/hammer strategy, where you farm a lot and build mines and run GP farms, you can increase by a lot more.

Imagine running your entire civ for 1/5 of the game at +40% average. This is what I do in some games - get the Mausoleum and then have 5 to 6 GP golden ages, plus the Taj Mahal, for 72 to 84 turns of blissful golden ages. If I gain just 80-120 commerce+hammers per turn, it's worth it, and most times I gain more than that; 1500 beakers is the most you can generally get from using the GP for tech. An empire with 8 cities of size 7 average, will have 64 (including city center) tiles improved by the GA, potentially 128 hammer+commerce - and that's not counting the free civics change. By the point that I can actually get 1500 beakers from the GP, I usually have an even larger empire than this...

Again, it's strategic - but in BtS it's often a good strategic decision. In vanilla or warlords, it's not as good of a choice, but there certainly are times it's useful. If nothing else, the Taj Mahal is nice...

10) This may just be a gameplay preference or because I'm entrenched into Civ 2 thinking, but I am having a hard time seeing the usefulness of the Cottage/Town improvement. In most cases, you are trading one or two food from a farm in exchange for what will eventualy be five gold. But, most specialists produce the equivalent of 4-6 gold's worth of culture/tech/whatever. If it comes out the same either way, why not take the higher population? I would rather prefer to customize my specialists to fit the needs of my city that to have extra commerce dumped into the "general commerce pool" that can only be regulated in 10% increments.

Cottage is a very important improvement, because it's the only way you're going to get significant commerce outside of specialists.

You certainly can run a specialist economy - I often do - but it's hard with some landmasses, and still ultimately there are times you need the cottage even then.

Basically, a science specialist is net: (-2 food +3 beaker +3GPP). A cottage grassland tile is net (0 food 1->5 commerce). The math is not so simple as you were implying above - that food is really important. You can of course farm your grassland, getting 3 food, or (+1 food) net; but it takes two of those to feed one specialist, so you have 3 population going to 3 beakers and 3 GPPs, or a whopping 1 beaker plus 1 GPP each. 1 GPP is worth more than a beaker, though the exact worth varies wildly - I usually value it at around 2-3 beakers, but it's often unmodified (unless you have parthenon/philosophical leader/national epic). So, net 3-4 commerce. Those 3 citizens can instead be earning +1-+5 trade each as cottage owners - and +1 for FIN trait; and it's heavily modifiable; and it's much more flexibly used, as the 2-3 commerce for the GPP is limited in how it's usable (certain techs) except for the merchant. Add in the hammer from universal suffrage and it's a great deal. (Once you reach Biology this may not be as true anymore, as you get +1 food per farm, but by this point you have towns everywhere anyhow, so 5 commerce, and probably universal suffrage).

Again, you can easily run a specialist economy, and many people do - especially in the early game when you are at the expansion limit. However, on balance it's somewhat easier to run a cottage economy, and often works better. It's much more flexible based on terrain, also, as it doesn't require lots of food available; and the GPP are worth less every GP you get (GPP = great person points), so that strategy has some limitations, particularly in using it on a wide scale. You also have a limit to the kinds of specialist you can run pre-code of laws, and in the late game if you're not running emancipation you have some serious problems with happiness in large cities, so you do have some serious limits on your specialist economy. But, certainly play around with it - play some games with and some without, as you'll find that it's a very different game - but a very interesting one either way

**The Priest** · February 10, 2008, 19:05

Hi, can't promise I have all the answers but I'll give it a go:

1. Can't remember the full answer to this. Yes in some cases - but I can't remember quite which ones. I think it is that you can only irrigate tundra next to a river (i.e. being next to another irrigated plot won't do).

2. Well, a little more than that. Yes it doesn't need food etc., but more that than. It doesn't count against population at all. A size 10 city which gets a free specialist from a wonder remains size 10, so the extra specialist doesn't count against happiness and health either.

3. Yes the UN resolutions force you to change your civic. I think that if the resolution comes up again, and it is then voted down, it lapses and you can change your civic.

4. Testing my knowledge here. I think that you can do anything in making a mod, but that isn't quite what you mean. From within the game there is the option at start up which allows you to attach different leaders to different civs. So you could be arabs, giving you the camel archer, with another leader, but you would have the arabs Unique building and startin techs.

5. No, though they do spread naturally - i..e. regrow in plots next to existing forests (though in my experience it is only if the land is not improved at all, not even a road). The natural park national wonder increases the frequency of the growth. Frustrating maybe but it stops you chopping and resowing, and means you have to think carefully before removing a forest, given you permanently lose the health bonus.

6. I don't think so. You try telling the people you are going to destroy their cheap electricity. However, if you build better power plants (nuclear and hydro), while the coal plant stays on the list, it stops working and its health penalty goes.

7. Not sure what you are refering to? Advanced start? In that case, as soon as you build the city the free buidligs are there. My guess is that they are then just normal buildings which can be destroyed/rebuilt as normal, and no you wouldn't get them automatically when you capture a foreign city. Its just connected to the settler action.

8. No, great specialists do not count for food, nor as poputions for other matters e.g. health and happiness.

9. Its a balance really. On the whole, the bigger your empire is, the more value you get from a GA, since there are more cities getting the bonuses. There are some extra benefits of goldern ages (in BTS only I think) which is the doubling of GP points and no anarchy in civic changes. The second of these can be very useful. You get a GA for 8 turns and avoid 2/3 turns of anarchy. You are right of course that later GA cost more GL, but on the other hand the benefits of the settled leader are less (less time for them to give the benefits before the end) and the special action benefits are also comparatively less (e.g. only part way to a wonder, the boost to research or gold is less compared to your turnly average).

10. Well, it is a strategic choice, which changes as teh game develops (when you get biology, and a farm would give the extra food, the balance might change). However, two things:

(a) Most specialists don't give 4-6 extra. I wonder if you have respresentation (either because its late game, or because you have the pyramids). Some wonders also increase the power of specialists. Without them, before representations, a specialist will normally contribute less gold/research than a cottage would.

(b) Specialists are population and consume food and contribute to unhappiness and unhealth. You might think that two citiziens - one farming and one specialist is better than one citizen on a town, but if teh second citizen would be unhappy (and to a lesser extent unhealthy) you woudl be better with the one citizen on the town.

Cheers

10.

7.

**davypi** · February 10, 2008, 21:10

Thanks again for the replies.

With regards to #7, what I am referring to is, for the Granary, there is a note that says "Free on Renaissance and later starts." For some reason I was assuming that once you got to the Renaissance era that it would come free when you build the city, but it wasn't happening. However, what Priest said seems to make more sense

10) Snoop - I agree that the math is much more complicated but I was trying to save space in an already long message. However, between you and Priest I am beginning to see that I am wrong. For some reason, I was thinking that it took two points of commerce to generate one gold/beaker/culture point, but looking at the game I am running now, I see that it is one to one. In the early game, exchanging one food for a town is certainly the better deal as you get 1-5 commerce in exchange half a specialist. In the late game, it really depends on how your civ is setup. Once you reach biology, you're losing two food, so depending on what buildings, wonders, and civics you have (again, the details are in the math) you could hit a break even point, but I'm not sure you could come out ahead.

Ugh. Now I need to totally rethink my game.

**Lancer** · February 10, 2008, 21:45

I always jump into these threads thinking maybe there's a question so basic that even I could answer, but no luck yet.

So I will say there are others who don't know squat, you're not alone. Hope that helps.

**Robert** · February 11, 2008, 07:10

quote:

2) What is a "free specalist" as defined by the Statue of Liberty and Great Library wonders? Does this simply mean they don't need food or is there a different meaning here?

You have it essentially right, yes. A free specialist is an extra specialist that doesn't need food; you are still limited by the specialist counts you normally are limited to per type.

Not entirely correct.
The Statue of Liberty gives free specialists, the Great Library gives 2 free Great Scientists (settled).

The SOL specialists are still limited to the specialists cap.
The GL GREAT scientists are just extras.

**snoopy369** · February 11, 2008, 11:42

The GL does not give 'great scientists'. It gives settled scientists (that give you what a normal scientist gives you, such as giving you GP points). But you're right in that those free 'scientists' are not limited to the cap (while 'specialists' are).

The free granary/etc. on Advanced Start means that if you build a city, it comes with a few certain buildings. Those _are_ real buildings and are treated as if you built them. That's to speed up the early game in advanced start - the assumption is you'd probably have many of these buildings if you'd built the city 2000 years ago, so provide them to you, to get the most authentic game - folks who play advanced start specifically want to play a faster startup, so this helps give them this.

Free buildings in advanced start mean that you have a building in the city that will be destroyed if the city is captured by the same logic as any other building - all culture producing buildings, and randomly some non-culture-producing buildings, will be destroyed; but a granary, for example, could be retained. I don't believe you get the full set free if you capture the city.

**Robert** · February 11, 2008, 12:06

That's what I said: "Great Scientists (settled)"
Since that's what it gives you, a settled Great Scientist.
It gives 6 beakers / turn while a normal scientist gives you 3 beakers / turn.

**Supr49er** · February 11, 2008, 12:33

Welcome davypi.

**snoopy369** · February 11, 2008, 13:46

I'm fairly sure the GL gives you regular scientists. Otherwise you wouldn't get GPP from them, which I'm fairly sure you do.

I shall go home and verify this!

**Solver** · February 11, 2008, 13:50

GL dives regular scientists - two of them - along with the GPP.

**snoopy369** · February 11, 2008, 13:52

Thanks Solver for saving my sanity

CS, perhaps you run representation most of the time and so see 6 beakers?

**Solver** · February 11, 2008, 13:58

It could also be that CS is confusing the 6 beakers total given by the GL, which is the case without Representation.

**Robert** · February 11, 2008, 14:04

I stand corrected.
Too bad that I had to be corrected on my correction

**snoopy369** · February 11, 2008, 14:13

You were correct to note that the Scientists don't count against the limit, however, which I didn't (I read 'free specialists' and beelined to SL-style specialists)

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