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- MCP server with stdio transport for local use
- Search episodes, transcripts, hosts, and series
- 4,511 episodes with metadata and transcripts
- Data loader with in-memory JSON storage

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Episode: 4310
Title: HPR4310: Playing Civilization IV, Part 6
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4310/hpr4310.mp3
Transcribed: 2025-10-25 22:48:43
---
This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4,310 for Friday the 7th of February 2025.
Today's show is entitled, Playing Civilization 4 Part 6.
It is part of the series' computer strategy games.
It is hosted by Ahu Kha, and is about 14 minutes long.
It carries a clean flag.
The summary is, we continue our look at the mechanics of this game.
Hello, this is Ahu Kha, welcoming you to Hacker Public Radio in another exciting episode
in our ongoing series on computer strategy games, continuing my look at Civilization 4.
And I'm going to hit a couple of three topics here in this that don't require an entire
episode to themselves.
And the first one I want to talk about is research.
And as we've discussed going through this series in every 4X game research is very
important, certainly all of the civilization games.
And you need to invest some resources to researching new technologies.
And these will in turn open up new possibilities for your empire, new military units, new buildings,
new improvements, new wonders, and new civics.
Managing all of this is very important to success and it can't get complicated.
There are 92 technologies in the Beyond the Sword expansion, and the summary can be found
at the Civ fanatics site, I've got a link to that in the show notes.
The summary is great.
If you want to check on a specific technology, but in the game it is presented differently
as a tech tree.
You can see the tech tree by either going to the science advisor, that's a beaker icon
on the upper right.
Or by clicking on the big picture when you need to choose a new technology to research.
I would always encourage new players in particular to go to the big picture, because that lets
you see what lies ahead of you.
For example, you have just started a game and have chosen a military leader like Alexander.
To get decent military units you need bronze working.
But that is not one of the first texts available to research.
You can figure it out if you look at the tech tree, find bronze working, and realize it
requires you to first research mining.
And while you're in the tech tree, you can click on bronze working, telling the game
that that's your ultimate objective, and the game will immediately start researching
mining, and then automatically switch to researching bronze working as soon as mining
has been researched.
And this can work for more than one level.
You can click on a technology that has four levels of prerequisites, and the game will
cue them up very neatly for you.
Now when you are in the tech tree, you will notice that each technology has several icons
under it.
And if you mouse over the icons, you'll get a pop-up that explains something that the
technology unlocks for you.
For example, the compass is a technology that allows you to build the explorer unit and
to build harbors in your coastal cities.
And you would find that out if you did that mouse over on the compass technology.
So if you spend some time getting familiar with the tech tree, it will pay off, and you
will progress through the game much more easily.
The thing you want to really nail down are the units, buildings, civics, and wonders
that can be enabled by making technology discoveries.
Because you want to align those with your strategy.
Now we looked at one aspect of that previously when we discussed the civics, and how those
should be aligned, depending on whether you want a military victory, a science victory,
culture victory.
And the same is true for units, buildings, and wonders, yet to know how they work and incorporate
them into your planning.
And now with wonders, another thing that has been a constant feature in all of the versions.
And again, there is a, the civ fanatics site has a nice description of all of the wonders
and there's a link in the show notes, there are 41 world wonders, which can only be built
once per game, and whoever builds one first gets it.
You may have been building one, and then get a message that your city can no longer build
it.
If that happens to you, what that means is another player just finished it, and all you get
is a consolation of some gold in exchange for all the production you poured into it.
And there are 14 national wonders, which can be built once by each player in the game.
So you will never lose out on building one of those.
Now, these national wonders mostly affect the city that builds them, and you cannot build
more than two in any one city.
So if you have the ability to construct one, think about where you want to put it for
the best effect.
Now you can see all of these at another page at the civ fanatics site, which I have put
into the show notes.
As an example, the forbidden palace reduces maintenance in nearby cities.
So you would want to build it in the city that is surrounded by others of your cities.
And if you are going for a culture victory, make sure you put the hermitage in one of
the three cities you have targeted for getting to legendary culture.
Finally, there are four projects.
These are similar to wonders, except they cannot be hurried in any way.
Wonders can be hurried by either chopping down forest, or if you have the universal suffrage
civic by spending gold.
The point is that you want to identify the wonders, national wonders, and projects that are
most important for your strategy, and make sure you are progressing to them ahead of
anyone else.
For example, if you are going for a military victory, you might want to focus on getting
the Great Wall, the Cremlin, and the Pentagon.
But if you are going for a culture victory, you might want to get Broadway, Hollywood,
and rock and roll.
Note that each of these has effects to increase culture in the city in which it is built.
And if you are going for a culture victory, you should pick the three cities that you
will target for getting legendary culture, and make sure to build these wonders in these
targeted cities.
You may not get them all, but that is what you should aim for.
As for science, the aim here is the space race, so the Apollo project is very important.
But among the wonders you might want are the Great Library, the Mausoleum of Masalus,
the Parthenon, and the Space Elevator.
And don't overlook how you can use religion to boost your science.
If you have state religion, plus the University of Sancore, you get more science and more
great scientists.
People frequently overlook how religion can boost both science and culture in this game.
Now let's take a look at Great Persons.
That's the third topic we want to take a look at.
Great Persons, great people, whatever you want to call it are special units that are
born in the course of the game.
They can do a lot, and you will want to gather as many of them as you can.
They are the great artist, the great engineer, the great general, the great merchant, the
great prophet, the great scientist, and the great spy.
They will be born in one of your cities when you accumulate enough great person points
of the appropriate type, and using them wisely is important.
And how you use them depends, of course, on what strategy you were following.
They can sometimes build specialty buildings, do a special operation in a city, or become
a super specialist in that city.
So great artist, if you get a great artist, you can spend that great artist immediately
to create a great work, which adds an immediate 4,000 culture to the city, sometimes referred
to as a culture bomb, or it can become a super specialist in the city, producing three
gold and 12 culture per turn.
Now, great engineer can be used to hurry production in a city by adding 500 production
to whatever is in the queue.
It's mostly good for hurrying wonders and projects.
Alternatively, it can become a super specialist adding three production and three science
per turn to the city.
Great general can build a military academy in the city, which adds three culture, and
plus 50% military unit production to the city, or as a super specialist can provide
plus two experience for all new units.
Great merchant.
Great merchant can go to a foreign city and conduct a trade mission, giving you 2,000
gold immediately.
Or as a super specialist, it can add one food and six gold per turn to a city.
A great profit can be used to build a religious shrine, which will generate additional faith,
or as a super specialist can add two production and five golds to the city each turn.
A great scientist can build an academy, which produces four culture and plus 50% science.
Or as a super specialist can add one production and six science to the city each turn.
A great spy can conduct an infiltration in a foreign city, yielding 3,000 espionage points,
or it can build the Scotland Yard, which doubles the espionage points produced by the city.
Or as a super specialist can add three science and 12 espionage points to the city each turn.
Now how do you get these?
Well you generate great people by accumulating great people points or by researching certain
texts.
For instance, the first person to research music automatically gets a great artist.
The getting points is the most common, and you can do that from wonders and national
centers, whereby specialists.
Specialists are people who live in your city, but are not assigned to working tiles.
This is something that civilization has had from the very first version, when they were
called scientists, entertainers, and tax collectors.
You can get free specialists in several ways through certain texts, wonders, etc.
But the majority will probably be citizens you have taken out of the production role in
assigned to be specialists.
This means they are not producing food, not working in your minds, and so on.
The food is particularly important because even though they are not working your farms,
they still need to eat.
This puts a natural limit on how many specialists you can have in a city.
Now to assign people to become specialists, or just reassigning people in general, you
go to the city screen, and in the city screen in the middle you'll see your city laid
out.
You'll have the usual 21 tiles of the Big Fat Cross, as it has been in Siv, since the
very first one.
On those tiles you will see circles representing citizens working there, and you can see icons
for what they are producing.
You can reassign a worker by clicking on the tile, except you cannot reassign the worker
on the city center, which is the very middle one.
On the right of the city screen, you can see your specialists, and you can take a citizen
that is not working, and turn it into a specialist by clicking on the plus button next to the
specialist icon.
And the more specialists you create for each type, the more great person points you'll
accumulate each turn.
So if you were going for a science victory, for instance, you would want to create a few
science specialists, and they would create great science points, and you would get more
great scientists that way, which you could then turn into super specialists or produce
a building academy with them, which are ways of boosting your science.
So that's how those work, so this is Ahuka for Hacker Public Radio, signing off, and
is always encouraging to support FreeSoftware.
Bye bye.
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