A rookie question

[bubbaB4U]

I've been having trouble with mongols showing up in my country. I make peace with them, and they say they'll withdraw their forces, but then I find a village or city. When I get close to it I'm told to withdraw my forces. What gives? Are they lying to me, or does peace mean that they can come and settle on my land. Of course I destory the village, and now I'm considered untrustworty. It's probably a dumb question, and there'll be plenty more?

Bubba the Terrible

[Bereta_Eder]

quote: Originally posted by bubbaB4U on 01-22-2001 08:31 PM I've been having trouble with mongols showing up in my country. I make peace with them, and they say they'll withdraw their forces, but then I find a village or city. When I get close to it I'm told to withdraw my forces. What gives? Are they lying to me, or does peace mean that they can come and settle on my land. Of course I destory the village, and now I'm considered untrustworty. It's probably a dumb question, and there'll be plenty more? Bubba the Terrible

Emmm, you had peace but you captured or destroyed one of their cities... GOOD JOB I do it all the time!

The thing is whenever you have peace you are kindly requested not to have any units inside any of their city radious. (that is: 3 squares away from all their cities - except up and down (you have to be 1 square away) and left and right). Press ctrl + G to get an idea of city radious.

Now you say that they came close to your territory. This will happen all the time especially with civs like the warlike mongols. What you can do to TRY and secure some of the territory you want to build a city at is to place a unit right on that particular square untill your settler comes.

AS for the untrustworthy thing: you broke a treaty and you are thus considered a bad boy. You reputation has diminished. You can check out your rep by using the foreign minister's report (F3).
The only way to have an excellent rep ids to never go back on your word.
That doesn;t mean you have to have peace all the time. Ypou can be a warlord with a clean sheet. The trick is to MAKE the others declare war on you. You can accomplish that by demanding tribute, insist to withdraw their forces and other things that may piss them off and declare war.
You are then merely «defending» yourself

[Wiglaf]

quote: Originally posted by bubbaB4U on 01-22-2001 08:31 PM I've been having trouble with mongols showing up in my country. I make peace with them, and they say they'll withdraw their forces, but then I find a village or city. When I get close to it I'm told to withdraw my forces. What gives? Are they lying to me, or does peace mean that they can come and settle on my land. Of course I destory the village, and now I'm considered untrustworty. It's probably a dumb question, and there'll be plenty more? Bubba the Terrible

Yeah, as PKT said, peace is a (in theory) permanent agreement that ensures the safety of both nations. To make this more comforting, you are asked to stay away or you might be considering (in the AI's view) a sneak attack (which, in your game, happened )

And don't worry about dumb questions - when we first had the game it took us a LONG time to get this thing down - and we had manuals!
[This message has been edited by SMACed (edited January 22, 2001).]

[Daddy-O]

There are no dumb questions.

Peace is a pain. I prefer a cease fire or an Alliance. The Alliance will allow members of the alliance to occupy eachother's territory. Speaking of territory. Your only territory is within the city radius. The land in between that looks like it would obviously be yours is up for grabs until it is settled.

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"Bonjour, you cheese-eatin' surrender-monkeys."

[Chris 62]

quote: Originally posted by bubbaB4U on 01-22-2001 08:31 PM I've been having trouble with mongols showing up in my country. I make peace with them, and they say they'll withdraw their forces, but then I find a village or city. When I get close to it I'm told to withdraw my forces. What gives? Are they lying to me, or does peace mean that they can come and settle on my land. Of course I destory the village, and now I'm considered untrustworty. It's probably a dumb question, and there'll be plenty more? Bubba the Terrible

Your country's border is only as far as each of your cities'radius. Go to view, then select display hex grid. The area highlighted in white is considered the land of your tribe, and you can ask anyone of the computer tribes to leave it. If the A.I.(arificial intellegence) player determins that you are a threat(Your tech far ahead), or that you are weak(not many units), the A.I. will declare war. If you are stronger, you can demand tribute(I.E.money) from them. However, you cannot demand tribute if you change your government to republic,or democracy, but when you get them your science and money will increase dramatically under these forms of government. On your foreign minister screen you can see what the strength of the A.I. civs, if you establish an embassy(move a diplomat,or later a spy into the A.I.'s city) or build the great wonder MARCO POLO. Marco Polo will tell you the strength, government type, capital, city names, tech level, what the A.I. is researching, cash on hand, political disposition(who it's at war or allied with) government type, and lastly the A.I.'s disposition. If you look at the Mongols, you will see that they are warlike. If you want a more peaceful game, restart with the custom rules(you will see a screen asking this in the start up menu) in the custom rules, select enemy tribes, then pick the tribes that are perfectionist(Babylon,america,ect.). By now you must be into the game. Do you like the wondermovies? The Throne room changes? Any more questions, just post them and one of us is will probaly have an answer, so good luck, and enjoy!

[kcbob]

Once in a while, I'll start as the Sioux (or Mongols) just to eliminate them as a possibility as an opponent. I HATE purple!!

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Frodo lives!

[East Street Trader]

A nice point to note, Bubba, is that you will run across occasions when Mongol units are sat next to one of your cities and you ask to speak to the Mongol ambassador intending to make a polite request that they leave, only to find that the option normally available of making that request is not offered to you. What this will mean is that the Mongols are intent on a sneak attack!

There is an attack bonus given to the sneak attack so this may well be an occasion to provoke a declaration of war by them or to embark upon a sneak attack of your own.

Reputation turns out not to be of any very great consequence in the game (unless you play a One City Challenge game) so many people sneak attack regularly with great satisfaction. Some have ethical objections to such conduct and take pleasure in maintaining a spotless reputation throughout.

The ability to provoke war is of importance because in the higher forms of gov.t your senate is full of doves and they will often force you to make peace when you are intent on conquest or are wearing down a powerful A1 opponent. Similarly the Great Wall and UN wonders sometimes drive you unwillingly into peace. There are a number of ways to provoke (some given above) but one useful technique is to identify your intended target's enemy and talk to them. With luck they will invite you to attack the evil * and you can accept that invitation without intervention (and without damage to your rep either). This works particularly well if you have one or two alliances with reasonably distant civs. Allies can usually be relied upon to invite you into their wars.

Another nice point is this. You will sometimes, especially early on, have units wandering a long way from home and will sometimes find that you want them to come back home to where your cities are located either so that they can help out defending, assist with maintaining martial law or join an army embarking on conquest. Sometimes you can save them the long treck home. What you do is mossey on up into the territory of a the city with whose civ you are at peace. You get reminded that you have signed a peace treaty and ought to leave. You ignore that and what will, quite often, happen next is that the civ will demand that you remove your troops or else renounce the peace treaty. You then agree to remove the troops and the unit will immediately be transported to your own nearest city.

Two points about that trick. One is that all the units which you have in the general area of the civ will go home (this seems to be an exception to the notion that it is only the areas of your cities which are really yours) so be sure that you don't have units which you want to carry on exploring or boats intent on delivering cargoes in the vicinity. Secondly, sometimes puting your units next to a city will provoke a declaration of war or a sneak attack on those units. Also, the AI will often manoevre to trap your unit. When it does so it is particularly likely that the unit will subsequently get attacked.

I have speculated (but not sought to test) that fortifying a trapped unit is particularly provocative.

Hope that, rather long, post is of interest to you.

And welcome.

[jcarkey]

If any unit tht your nation is at peace with enters on of your city radii, then you can go to the diplomacy screen and demand that they withdraw troops. But be careful, if they decline your at war with a close enemy.

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If Al Gore invented the Internet, then I invented the spell check- Dan Quayle

If someone doesn't agree with you, you haven't explained yourself well enough-Luther Ely Smith

She turned me into a newt...well I got better- Monty Python and the Quest for the Holy Grail

[Wiglaf]

quote: A nice point to note, Bubba, is that you will run across occasions when Mongol units are sat next to one of your cities and you ask to speak to the Mongol ambassador intending to make a polite request that they leave, only to find that the option normally available of making that request is not offered to you. What this will mean is that the Mongols are intent on a sneak attack!

Of course, they might not let your ambassador through if they really, really hate you
[This message has been edited by SMACed (edited January 23, 2001).]

[bubbaB4U]

Thanks for all the tips. I have seen the great wall video, but that's the only one. All the other civs are beating me to the wonders, except for the great wall.

I'm glad you all told me about the cities being the extent of your territory. I thought All of England was mine. Some day.... IT WILL BE....HA HA HA HA!!! :-o! Oh excuse me.

One other question. I'm a little confused about the boats. If you don't end your turn close to shore, it sinks. How do you get to another land without sinking? Also, how do you load stuff on the boats, like horsemen etc.

Thanks again.
B

[Chris 62]

quote: Originally posted by bubbaB4U on 01-24-2001 06:56 AM Thanks for all the tips. I have seen the great wall video, but that's the only one. All the other civs are beating me to the wonders, except for the great wall. I'm glad you all told me about the cities being the extent of your territory. I thought All of England was mine. Some day.... IT WILL BE....HA HA HA HA!!! :-o! Oh excuse me. One other question. I'm a little confused about the boats. If you don't end your turn close to shore, it sinks. How do you get to another land without sinking? Also, how do you load stuff on the boats, like horsemen etc. Thanks again. B

If you look in the civiopedia, it tells you what all your units can do. Your first ship, the trieme, will sink 50% of the time unless it borders a land tile. The wonder LIGHT HOUSE will allow you to sail all over the world without danger of sinking. Your defense minister can also help with ships(not the guy who talks to you on council, thoses guys are often wrong!). Click on him, and the units that you have and are building are displayed, as well as their special attruibutes. Your Trieme can carry one unit. Just drag the unit you want to load on the ship on top of the ship. If your ship is in a city, any other units that are asleep(s command on your keyboard) will load on the ship when it exits the city, but only up to the ship's ability. All of the commands have HOTKEYS that are shown next to them in the tool bar commands. Use these, it makes the game flow smoothly. If you have enough money in your treasurey, you can build in one turn any wonder on your city display. Just click on the buy command on the left side of the build display. We told you about this game, it becomes an obsession! But by now I'll bet your having great fun with it! Feel free to keep shooting questions, and one small hint: Build the great library, you'll never regret it!

[Sieve Too]

Actually, Triremes can carry two units. A ship type with the "coastal" ability on the defense minister's report is the only kind of ship with the handicap that it may sink if it doesn't end its turn adjacent to land. Fortunately, Triremes are the only ship in the game with this handicap. The odds of sinking drop by half once you discover Seafaring and half again once you get Navigation.

[East Street Trader]

I'm betting you will enjoy the wonder movies. On occasions I still let them play even after seeing them many times. One or two (notably the one for Shakespeare's Theatre) I play every time.

What you need to do with your trireme initially is to explore around your coastline. You can safely move away from the coast on the first move (so as to expose one or two squares further out to sea), move to another square two squares away from land on the second move, then take care to ensure that on the last move brings you come back to a square adjacent to land (diagonal squares count as adjacent). Exposing the ocean squares is particularly helpful near any coastal city as you may expose a whale square (or fish for that matter, although they are not quite such useful "specials") within the area available to the citizens of that city to work. Acess to "specials" makes a great deal of difference to the productivity of the city, and hence of your civ. To keep up with the AI in building Wonders for example, you need a city which produces a good few shields (one of the benefits of a whale square lies in its two shields).

What is quite likely to happen while you explore along the coast is that you will be able to detect the loom of nearby land (an ocean square looks ever so slightly different when there is a land square next to it). Your trireme can safely cross straights which are no wider than three ocean squares.

Once you find nearby land masses you may locate other civs (which opens up diplomatic opportunities - notably the chance to exchange advances your civ has made for advances they have made or else the chance to consider war and conquest) and/or you may find some prime real estate to which you can ferry a settler and start colonising.

There is a small "cheat" you can use which helps while you are dependant on triremes for ocean travel. If you right click on a square within the fog of war area and then double left click on that square you will get information about it. In particular you will learn whether the square is land or sea. So if you suspect that there may be land a square or two away from your trireme you can peek first and move the trireme in that direction only if your suspicions are confirmed.

You will have your own ethical stance on that as a "cheat" but, particularly when starting to play on the higher levels, I think most of us "cheated" for a period (long or short) while working up our skills to the point where there is a realistic chance of winning without such resort.

While you are exploring with your trireme try keeping a unit on board (say a horseman). Once you find land he can then be offloaded (either instruct the trireme to move to the land square you want him to go to and then say yes when asked if he is to disembark or click on the trireme thereby bringing up a screen showing the units on board, click on the horseman to wake him up - units on board ship are in inactive mode, "sleeping", and then move him onto the land). He can then go off exploring the hinterland.

In fact a horseman works well as an explorer staying close to the trireme. A particularly effective way to enter a hut, should you find one on a coastal square, is to enter with a horseman using his first move while the trireme hovers in the immediate vicinity. Then, should barbarians emerge from the hut, the wily horseman simply uses his second move to embark back aboard the boat and thereby renders himself safe from attack by the barbarians.