Noob thread

[wodan11]

Just installed my game, Civ4 plus the two XPs, then briefly looked into it. I'm wondering - I get three separate desktop icons for Civ4, Warlords and BtS. When I start the game via BtS I only seem to get access to the BTS scenarios. When I leave and click the Warlords or vanilla Civ4 icon (for example to play scns from Warlords), it wants me to change discs.

Is there some easy way to avoid that and to get access to the stuff from all three installments without changing discs and launch these several versions seperately? IIRC in Civ3 you started the main game, then selected whatever you wanted from there, incl. content from the various XPs. Can I do that here too somehow?

I don't think so but you will almost certainly play BtS over all other options. (The one exception I'm aware of are the Warlords scenarios.)

[sorinache]

Just installed my game, Civ4 plus the two XPs, then briefly looked into it. I'm wondering - I get three separate desktop icons for Civ4, Warlords and BtS. When I start the game via BtS I only seem to get access to the BTS scenarios. When I leave and click the Warlords or vanilla Civ4 icon (for example to play scns from Warlords), it wants me to change discs.

Is there some easy way to avoid that and to get access to the stuff from all three installments without changing discs and launch these several versions seperately? IIRC in Civ3 you started the main game, then selected whatever you wanted from there, incl. content from the various XPs. Can I do that here too somehow?

BeBro, you are asking the wrong question. These are three different games, with (slightly, but still) different rules, not just packs of scenarios for the same game engine (this might have been the case with Civ III expansions, which is getting you confused).

You only need to patch BtS to 3.17 and then play only that from there on. No need to waste your time with Civ IV vanilla or Warlords : BtS is a vastly improved proposition that has everything the other two have, only in a better implementation

[BeBMan]

Ahh ok, thanks

[duke o' york]

So is it even worth me installing vanilla and Warlords? You said they were three different games, so should I just install and play BtS?

[Krill]

Warlords and BtS are expansions; you need to install vanilla to install BtS, but you should only play BtS unless you want to see what the game was like as an earlier incarnation and then redecide if you would rather play an earlier type of game. (for example warlords 2.13 was the most balanced for MP, BtS still has some massive holes in it, for example flank attacks make it possible to defend against armies much larger than your own, so long as you hit a critical mass of the right types of units, and you have all the resources, which in an MP game your team should. Most people play BtS though because there are never enough people willing to stay behind to keep enough games going to make it worthwhile).

[Unimatrix11]

My recommendation for the install queue:

- Vanilla
- BTS (then patch)

Play BTS till you get bored of it, and if you happen to have warlords, too, install it then, to see if you get something out of the scenarios that came with and are exclusive to it (or so i heard - i dont play scenarios). Before that happens you will only need the BTS shortcut on your desktop (and maybe one to your savegame-folder since you can also directly jump into saved games by double-clicking them in windows).

[Krill]

Warlords had one awesome scenario with it, the barb scenario, where you got to play teh barbs and had to try and kill all of the AIs. Man, that was an awesome scenario...anyone know if you download that anywhere?

[BeBMan]

I noticed one decisive advantage of vanilla/Warlords compared to BtS: I like the earlier compass-style busy cursor a lot more than the ugly turning earth thing coming with BtS

But yeah, I did as suggested and play BtS - need to get into the game anyway so I played the tut first.

[wodan11]

Warlords had one awesome scenario with it, the barb scenario, where you got to play teh barbs and had to try and kill all of the AIs. Man, that was an awesome scenario...anyone know if you download that anywhere?

Krill:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?p=7716618

[Krill]

Thanks mate That's the best mod I can think of that would teach you to how to attack.

[Blaupanzer]

Good to see you Krill. Glad you stopped by.

[BeBMan]

Errm....more silly noob questions: is it somehow possible to "buy" (rush) unfinished buildings/units, like in goold old Civ2 for example?

I only skimmed through pedia and the pdf manuals I got on CD, there it mentions I can sacrifice people under slavery to finish buildings, but how exactly does it work?

[ColdPhoenix]

If you have the slavery civic enacted you can sacrifice up to half a cities population for building, units or wonders. Each citizen is worth a number of hammers and when you rush in this way an additional unhappy face is added to the city for a number of turns (the unhappy can of course be cancelled out in the normal way by having enough temples/resources etc). When conditions are right (enough population/correct civic) the slavery button will become enabled in the city screen.

If you have the universal suffrage civic enacted you can rush with gold. There is no penalty for doing this other than the cost in gold.

[sorinache]

Errm....more silly noob questions: is it somehow possible to "buy" (rush) unfinished buildings/units, like in goold old Civ2 for example?

I only skimmed through pedia and the pdf manuals I got on CD, there it mentions I can sacrifice people under slavery to finish buildings, but how exactly does it work?

Rushing buildings/units with money was spoiling the gameplay in Civ 2 : it was simply too easy to just maximize the money you were producing and then buy everything.

The answer is "yes", but you need the "universal suffrage" civic (you got it when discovering Democracy I believe).

Rushing with pop (I learned people call this "whipping") is also possible, with the "slavery" civic (you'll need only Bronze working, an early tech, for it). After you made your revolution and are officially runing a slavery regime, a tiny little button light up in the city interface. It's not easy to find, but open a city view and start hovering the mous cursor slowly over all the buttons you see - at some point you are bound to find the one allowing "whipping".

Two related thoughts :
- I don't like whipping - it seems there are a lot of fans out there, but to me it's not only offensive, it also smells like bad strategy : population is, eventually, THE main ressource in the game, especially since (I'm anticipating the future BeBro question) there is NO Civ2-like "We love the President" situation (another spoiler in Civ 1 and 2) to allow you to quickly inflate your population (there IS a "we love the ..." situation but its effects are MUCH less dramatic ...). So what is the authoritative answer : is whipping a good strategy ?
- I kinda feel they might have wanted to exchange the "representation" and "universal suffrage" caracteristics, for realism's sake : I always prefer +3 beakers per specialist and +3 happy faces in the 6 biggest cities (representation effect) over +1 hammer for cities and the ability to rush production with money (I seldom have excess money anyway, the treasury doesn't pay interest ...). So one cheap idea would have the two reversed : representation could bring + 1 hammer and possibility to rush and universal suffrage would have all specialist boost research. That way, I suppose most people would be in "universal suffrage" in the end game, which is more realistic. This is also consistent with the other civic areas : in the end game, I tend to have "free religion" (latest religion civic), "environmentalism" (latest market civic, sometimes only), "emancipation" and "free speech". Not a big deal though.

[Ming]

I don't like whipping - it seems there are a lot of fans out there, but to me it's not only offensive, it also smells like bad strategy : population is, eventually, THE main ressource in the game...

Yes... population indeed is an important resource. But early in the game, you have low happiness caps. It is very easy to exceed those caps quickly, and excess population isn't doing anything because happiness limits. Whipping is a good way to keep that under control and use that excess population. Granted, you have to be careful how you do it so you don't create more unhappiness than you can deal with, but it is an excellent strategy for dealing with two big early problems... Building things quickly at a key point in the game, and finding a use for population that isn't doing anything anyway.

As far as being offensive... in real life, yep... but we are talking about a game here. And frankly, at that point of time in history, it's what really happened.