It doesn’t. It isn’t getting along with your hardware.
Meh. I’m running a 2GB 5850 and getting the texture pop-in. I can’t see that this is an inadequate hardware issue. It’s gotta be issues with drivers or something.
With ATI video cards you can update your video drivers right through steam. Works smoothly. With Nvidia drivers you go to their site.
I recall hearing some traditional Chinese Orchestral songs which I have heard before; the soundtrack is mostly ethnic music, much like Civ 4.
How do you tell what units cost to upkeep? I’m running bankrupt and I’m hoping to disband only my most costly unit or two. The economics page only lists your total unit cost, and as far as I can tell neither the civilopedia pages or the units themselves have their gold per turn maintenance cost listed.
Also, do you get any benefits from disbanding, like a production boost in a nearby city?
To respond to our points:
- greater population and so better science output (eg quicker to get two size 5 cities than one size 10 as growth is quicker in smaller cities)
- working more tiles means more gold income from tiles to help maintain buildings
- happiness is the big challenge in a larger empire. But it does allow you to access more luxuries and the forbidden palace will help a lot.
- the emerging opinion is that if you play it right then you actually progress through the social policies quicker with a larger empire. The required culture doesn’t increase at a linear rate and having policies like the +1 culture from city will be a good help for large empires. Building an extra city will hold you back socially in the short term but as long as you build culture buildings it should serve you better long term.
- it seems to me that if you build a road using the shortest possible route then the trade route actually produces slightly more gold than the cost of maintaining the road.
Overall, a big empire is difficult to keep happy but I think that’s balanced by faster research and greater production. It probably isn’t as easy to maintain financially either (as each city will be smaller and produce less gold but you’re going to want culture and science buildings in each city to take advantage of the larger population) but that can be partly offset by selling the excess resources you’ll have.
When you line up troops along someone else’s border, and they ask if you’re going to declare war on them, and you say yes, it’ll say “well at least you’re honest” - does that do you any favors? Does it lessen the diplomatic impact with other civs?
There isn’t a per unit cost but just a total by the number of units.
So eg 100g for 100 units, 95g for 98 units. It doesn’t matter which two you get rid off, you’ll save 5g per turn either way.
Oddly units seem to be paired for costs. So you can get rid of one and see no benefit and then get rid of another to save 8g per turn, and then the next will do nothing… Don’t know why but look at your income when you get rid of a unit to see if it’s worth getting rid of another.
If you want to dispose of a military unit go for a poorly promoted, obselete unit as it makes no difference. Rather than disbanding it, gift it to a city state for a small boost in approval.
If you get rid of a worker, disband in your territory for a small gold boost (30g or so).
I don’t think there’s a difference to your unit costs if you remove a civilian or military unit.
If you say “no, I’m not going to attack”, and then do, the other civs will lose trust in you and be less likely to enter into agreements.
Aha. But if you honestly just declare war there’s no penalty?
I was asked if I was going to declare war (it was his fault really, lining up against my border with lots of units) but I wasn’t quite set up yet so I told him no. A few turns later I attack, and I notice a few civs become hostile to me. 20 or 30 turns later, after I win the war with him, about 4 civs go to war with me, each with an army bigger than mine, so it’s basically game over. What an unsatisfying way to end a game after 300 turns - just get steamrolled by everyone.
Yeah, no penalty if you’re honest.
Perhaps if you’d been honest then the other civs wouldn’t have attacked you. I know it affects how likely they are to deal with you but not sure if dishonesty starts them actively disliking you, it may have been the final straw for them in this case though!
In future it may be best to keep them deeper inside your territory before you’re ready to attack. 
ETA, by no penalty I mean no penalty beyond the normal for being a warmonger.
One guy at civfanatics forum complained that after he was honest the turn ended, then the civilization launched a pre-emptive strike on his troops.
this game is such a letdown. big waste of money, seems like they spent all their time on the intro movie which boots every time. no “moment of wonder” that i had for alpha centauri, i’d kill for AC2
Ha! I’ll have to have a look and see if we can ask them if *they’re *planning to attack!
So I’m trying a game as Alexander to see how much I can do with lots of city state allies. I made allies early with a maritine state, and it says that my capital will get +4 food and my other cities +2, but I don’t seem to be getting any extra food. My food is explained by the tiles around the cities. Do I need to connect via road or harbor or something in order to receive the benefit? Getting to ally wasn’t cheap, and so far it seems useless.
I don’t think you need the connection. Have you tried hovering over the food +/- in the city screen. It will say what’s being eaten and how many are provided by tiles, buildings and city states.
Yeah, it only lists “by terrain” as a food source, and the numbers of food generated by my tiles seem to add up. No extra food that I can find.
Perhaps it’s no longer an ally?
Been an ally the whole time.
I notice that the center square of a city (the one that’s worked without a worker associated with it) has 7 food in my capital but 4 food in my other cities. When I hover over the food icon for one of my non-capitals, it says total food generated 13 food from terrain, 8 eaten by population, 13-8= +5 growth.
Now when you add up all the tiles around my city except the city square, it does indeed add to 13. But what about those 4 food icons in the center square? It should be 17 total food, right?
Edit: It must be silently reflected because I deliberately let the alliance fall into friendship and now the center squares are receving less food - 3 food the non-capitals and… a basket that no longer has a number (therefore 5?) in the capital. But… that still doesn’t explain why the center square food isn’t reflected in the total food listing. It does affect growth rate though.
I played tow times thhe demo. Contrary to expectations, it ran just fine. Of course, isn’t necessarily the case with more than 6 civilizations.