Civilization IV [Archive]

screwtype

10-24-2005, 07:28

Anyone buying it? Ive ordered my copy off Amazon today and it should arrive by tuesday ~D

IGN Review can be found here.

http://pc.ign.com/articles/660/660495p1.html

Lots of very late nights in prospect i expect.

I will definitely have a look at the reviews. I honestly didn't like Civ III much, just far too much micromanagement and the graphics are really naff, but the game still had some very nice features and a graphics overhaul and some work here and there could translate into an excellent title.

Edit: Having just read the ign review, I'm sorely tempted to rush out and buy it right away! I especially liked this paragraph:

Fans should be assured that all the basic concepts from Civilization are still here, but many of the more obnoxious or troublesome elements have been greatly improved upon. City production, combat, and culture have all been tweaked to allow for more intuitive application within the game. Concepts like civil disorder, predictable tech paths, pollution and the creeping pace of the late game have all benefited from substantial revisions that make them more manageable and enjoyable aspects of your strategy.

The "creeping pace of the late game" is definitely something that was a major turn-off for me.

While I'm not totally in love with the new graphic style (the military units especially look too big to me) it's obviously a vast improvement over the dated graphics of the previous instalment. I also like the sound of the new unit promotion feature.

Some of the other changes I didn't like the sound of so much, but overall it looks like a considerable improvement. This might well be my next full price title...

The_Doctor

10-24-2005, 10:07

It looks excellent.~:cheers:

ShadesWolf

10-24-2005, 10:27

Oh Yes
I cant wait

NodachiSam

10-24-2005, 18:00

Has anyone heard anything about a demo? I often attempt to try a game first before I buy, legitamately, or otherwise.

Crazed Rabbit

10-24-2005, 18:33

English assassin

10-24-2005, 18:38

hmm. It's going to have to be quite a lot different to/better than Civ III before its a full price buy for me.

I kind of suspect they churn the franchise every few years as new gamers come of age (as it were) but if not and its really new, I'll get it. It IS Civ after all.

The_Doctor

10-24-2005, 21:13

Hmm. It seems that the UN can now introduce rules and whatnot. My question is: are these binding? I.e. if the UN votes for changing something that affects you, does it not give you an option to just ignore the UN?

It will probably be like SMAC, if you ignore the UN everybody who said yes will hate you.

You would be a rouge state.

hmm. It's going to have to be quite a lot different to/better than Civ III before its a full price buy for me.

From what I have read, it will be. Most reviews say it is the best Civ ever.

These are good previews:
http://civilization4.net/3/171/

If that does not convince you, nothing will.

The_Doctor

10-24-2005, 21:40

According to this you have to comply with the UN.
http://www.civfanatics.com/civ4/preview/filling_the_gap.php

Maybe you can change your government after the resolution?

GoreBag

10-24-2005, 22:04

Looks like it comes out today. I may head over to EB and see what's up.

The_Doctor

10-24-2005, 23:13

Today or tomorrow for the US.

The 4th for Europe.

Or so I have heard.

Mongoose

10-25-2005, 01:29

screwtype

10-25-2005, 04:20

I hope it's as good as SMAC, Becuase CIV3 wasn't. unlike SMAC, however, there will be no shortage of people online.

Very glad to hear about the reduced MM, that alone might make it worth buying. SMAC and CIV3 are painful after about 200-300 turns*, setting the production quees alone can take up to 5 minutes:sleeping:

What's SMAC and MM?

Yeah, Civ3 just gets unplayable at a certain point. Waiting for all those AI factions at war to move and attack each other, one unit at a time - what a yawn!

I sure hope they've fixed that in this instalment. But it does seem they've stuck to the basic design when it comes to combat, which is a disappointment. And I suppose your military units still "conquer" at one lousy tile per turn.

Why don't these strategy game designers do something radical for a change and actually give us a real combat system to play with?

Oh well, at least they've got rid of corruption. Athough it remains to be seen whether what replaces it is an improvement...

All the same, I just might take a punt and pre-order. I'm hanging out for a decent strategy game, every new release these days seems to be either a shooter or a MMORG...

Mongoose

10-25-2005, 04:28

Screwtype

Micro Management

SMAC is a "Sci fi" Version of CIV, and IMO has better gameplay. The Story line is weak, but i think it makes up for that with large amount of units and the flexible gameplay.

http://www.firaxis.com/smac/

Why don't these strategy game designers do something radical for a change and actually give us a real combat system to play with?

Well, for the same reason that RTW has a weak Campaign; Making a large change would scare people, or at least thats what the developers seem to think. Or perhaps it woould take too long and it's easier to just clone an older game?

All the same, I just might take a punt and pre-order. I'm hanging out for a decent strategy game, every new release these days seems to be either a shooter or a MMORG...

Not all shooters and MMORG's are bad...but most of them are. Trying to work as part of a team to achieve a strategic goal is fun and rewarding. The problem is that most people are too busy typing "0mgz u r t3h ******* hax0rz!11! i r w1l 9wn u!1!!!1" To actually play the game properly. and, ofcourse, there can be the problem that the game is set u in a more "Free for all way" Which, sadly, seems to be the case alot of the time these days.

The issue with MMORG is that they are so exspensive, and there are always so many people speaking l337 that there just isn't much role playing, which defeats the point of the game.

screwtype

10-25-2005, 07:21

Well, for the same reason that RTW has a weak Campaign; Making a large change would scare people, or at least thats what the developers seem to think. Or perhaps it woould take too long and it's easier to just clone an older game?

I think it's just conservatism. There seems to be an industry mindset that strategy games don't have serious action components, and vice versa.

Bit of a tragedy really because that is just the kind of game I would most like to get my hands on! :charge:

Not all shooters and MMORG's are bad...but most of them are. Trying to work as part of a team to achieve a strategic goal is fun and rewarding. The problem is that most people are too busy typing "0mgz u r t3h ******* hax0rz!11! i r w1l 9wn u!1!!!1" To actually play the game properly. and, ofcourse, there can be the problem that the game is set u in a more "Free for all way" Which, sadly, seems to be the case alot of the time these days.

The issue with MMORG is that they are so exspensive, and there are always so many people speaking l337 that there just isn't much role playing, which defeats the point of the game.

I only had one foray into online multiplayer and it sucked. I live in the southern hemisphere and the lag from here to the other side of the planet, where most of the action is, is phenomenal...

screwtype

10-25-2005, 07:30

I dunno if I will be getting it or not. All the previous ones have annoyed me, because you could not really experience the earlier eras. I want a civ game where the stone age lasts long enough to really get something done. Not to mention the Medieval and Pre-Modern eras.

Yeah, it is a problem with these tech advance type games. One of my favourite games is Imperialism II which runs from 1500 to 1900 (when the techs stop) but it too tends to gallop rather quickly through the middle period, so that some technologies become redundant almost as soon as they become available.

In Civ I remember it being mainly in the gunpowder era. As I recall you are often through that and into World War I technology in the blink of of an eye.

But then again, it's not as though you'd really want the tech race in Civ to be any longer...

screwtype

10-25-2005, 07:43

I think makes sense to have some time compression in earlier ages - progress was pretty slow in the stone age after all...

But I agree that the time compression in some periods is just wrong. Hopefully it's better paced in the new game, but I have my doubts.

screwtype

10-25-2005, 10:04

As it is now, the same empire will be dominant from the Stone Age 'till the Nuclear Age--and that's a direct result of the poorly designed faction system, and the ridiculous rate of time compression.

I think it's more a question of available resources, isn't it?

But if you want to see different empires rise and fall in different Ages, I think you're expecting a little too much from a game. However I tend to agree that this type of game oftens gallops through some ages too quick. Yes, it would be good if each era had enough time to develop its own flavour a bit more.

At least, it would in theory. In practice though, given the time it takes already to play through a Civ campaign - I'm not so sure.

Mongoose

10-25-2005, 15:16

Expecting too much? Rubbish. Civ III was but a fraction of the complexity of, say, Victoria: An Empire Under the Sun. While they are totally different games, Victoria spent less time under development and is--quite simply--far more complex. Supreme Ruler 2010? Way more complex. Hosts of other strategy games? Way more complex.

Adding in a more realistic faction system would be a drop in the water of complexity.

True. A tech path that gives you a little more freedom would add to the comlexity as well. what annoys me the most is that they already did that in SMAC, but took a huge step backwards in CIV3. It just dosen't make any sense....

English assassin

10-25-2005, 16:12

I thought the pace was quite a bit better in Civ III than in Civ II (ridiculously fast,) or CTP (too fast until it hit a brick wall round about the early modern era, when it became glacial, I don't think I ever teched a fleet above Ironclads, or destroyers at best). In Civ III I found I was having slightly meaningful "roman" or "medieval" conflicts for the first time.

I don't see why they couldn't make it adjustable though. It would be easy to do, eg, instead of a turn being 20 years in the early era, have a option to make it 10 years, doubling production etc (ie, keeping it the same on a turn for turn basis) but leave the pace of scientific development the same. Then you would spend twice as long in the stone age.

I know absolutely nothing about how games work but surely this wouldn't be a hard option to provide?

Rosacrux redux

10-25-2005, 16:25

Gelatinous Cube, since each and every game coming out you imagine different, why in the nine hells don't you join a gaming company and try to produce a game more to your liking?

BTW what are your favorite games (strategy) - to know where you're standing I mean...

Geoffrey S

10-25-2005, 17:03

Here's hoping they'll work on a new Aplha Centauri game at some point.

NodachiSam

10-26-2005, 02:15

Here's hoping they'll work on a new Aplha Centauri game at some point.

That would be awsome. I can't understand why they havn't already.

I'd like to see the whole basis for the various civilizations be greatly improved (utterly silly the way it is now), in order to show the ebb and flow of various nations throughout time, and I'd like each turn to only be one year--regardless of time period. It would make technology take a back seat to things like diplomacy and war, which should be the real backbone behind a strategy game.

(break of a post)

Time Compression is already in effect quite nicely, by making each turn a year long! However, all I really want is for each era to be a game in and of itself, with it's important wars, politics, and empires. As it is now, the same empire will be dominant from the Stone Age 'till the Nuclear Age--and that's a direct result of the poorly designed faction system, and the ridiculous rate of time compression.

(break of several posts)

The Civ series has changed remarkably little since its inception. Much less than most other series' out there. A little more depth would do it good--yet Civ 4, from the reviews i've read, seems to be all about simplifying it.

I totaly know what you mean about civilization being too simplified. It isn't at all historic, though I don't think it they explicitly claim it is. If they do it is scoffable, pwah! *sticks nose up in air* ~;)

The problem with the Civ factions is because of the time scale they have a compromise between a political unit and a "culture". It is kind of awkward to begin with, no culture or political unit has ever survived more than 2000 years with the Romans being close if you don't count the transition from Republic to Empire as a break. The Chinese could be said to also have had a very long lasting culture even though it too evolved over time.

It would be refreshing if we could see factions flourish and flounder. I've never played any of the Paradox games so I can't say much about them but I really like how factions can grow stronger and weaker in the TW series. I like as well the civil wars and faction reemergences occur which reflect the internal conflicts that states experience. You never experience that in Civ games. No city decides to rebell against you and start a new faction because your leader has so little influence over them. Also, what type of city leaves one faction and joins another? Wouldn't it prefer independance? I never experienced it anyways.

I think that each era should be given great importance. I recall from Civ3 that the earliest era was the shortest and the latest the longest when in fact the reverse tends to be true. I think 1 year per turn is perhaps too strict though. Certainly I don't think they should skip centuries in earlier eras but the earlier eras did have less exciting things per time period than later eras. Also, if you played each year a turn that would be 5000 turns for a game at least if it starts at the building of the Pyramids, which could take an awful long time to say the least. Such a game would have to be meticulously balanced so as to remain exciting for so long a time. The ancient and middle age eras should definately be longer though.

screwtype

10-26-2005, 09:20

I don't see why they couldn't make it adjustable though. It would be easy to do, eg, instead of a turn being 20 years in the early era, have a option to make it 10 years, doubling production etc (ie, keeping it the same on a turn for turn basis) but leave the pace of scientific development the same. Then you would spend twice as long in the stone age.

I know absolutely nothing about how games work but surely this wouldn't be a hard option to provide?

No, it would be very easy to provide. Trouble is, the developers actually have to think of making the time aspect a moddable option.

CivIII was already a highly moddable game, and from what I've been reading CivIV is perhaps going to be the most moddable game ever, with support for XML scripts and even the ability to mod the AI. So perhaps the desires of folks like you and Gelatinous to have a longer and more complex game can yet be realized...

screwtype

10-26-2005, 09:47

It would be refreshing if we could see factions flourish and flounder.

Well, maybe. But I wonder how you are actually going to make a challenging game if you have your most powerful rivals fading away just as a function of time?

The object of a game like Civ is to conquer the world, it isn't to have an historic simulation of history. If you wanted that, you would in my opinion have trouble grafting it onto the Civ paradigm. IMO you are talking about a totally new game - a totally new genre even - and one that I'm not sure a lot of people would be interested in playing.

I think that each era should be given great importance.

I don't know about "great". Great-er, in some cases, certainly.

if you played each year a turn that would be 5000 turns for a game at least if it starts at the building of the Pyramids, which could take an awful long time to say the least

That's exactly my point. In a game that tries to cover the whole of history, it's a pretty tall order to expect it to cover every period at length and still remain playable. Certainly some extension of time in some eras might be workable. But I mean, if you are really going to have 1000 turns in the stone age, who is ever going to advance past that era before they have either conquered the other civs or been beaten themselves?

The ancient and middle age eras should definately be longer though.

Dunno about the ancient. But I definitely used to feel that the gunpowder era didn't get its fair share.

The_Doctor

10-26-2005, 19:35

http://www.kalikokottage.com/civ3/sullla/civ4intro.html

This is a "walkthough" of the game.

A new section will be added each day until next monday. You should probably skip the intro.

screwtype

10-27-2005, 05:45

The bugger skipped right past the speed options. Not elaborating at all other than mentioning they exist.

Yeah, pity about that. But I guess we'll find out soon enough.

http://www.kalikokottage.com/civ3/sullla/civ4intro.html

This is a "walkthough" of the game.

A new section will be added each day until next monday. You should probably skip the intro.

Hmm, that's a handy site Martinus. I might read right through that later, but I don't think I'll do it now.

One of the pleasures of a new game is discovering things for yourself ~:)

Fragony

10-27-2005, 13:40

Oh nooooooooooooooooooooooooooo just what I need so C4 rocks; RIP social life. Civ/smac are just to addictive it is the devil I say. But that won't stop me from getting it, you never really know if you are actually having fun when playing these games, but you just cannot stop.

how is the pike vs tanks thing ;)

English assassin

10-27-2005, 14:03

how is the pike vs tanks thing ;)

Not fixed, according to the review I read.

The_Doctor

10-27-2005, 16:04

how is the pike vs tanks thing ;)

Highly unlikey according to what I have read.

ChaosLord

10-27-2005, 17:20

The pikes versus tanks thing is fixed, but there are some things that can make it more likely to happen. One major thing is that damaged units don't attack at full strength, IE half hp=half strength. So if you find a low tech enemy and continually throw units at him ignoring damage and expecting to win constantly don't be suprised when your exhausted units get taken out.

As for the others, did you guys play Civ3 that much? Empires fell and rose all the time. It wasn't uncommon in Civ3 to see the biggest empire ganged up on in the middle/industrial ages creating a new balance of power. One killer AI usually pops up per continent, and its definitly not always just who was strong early on. I've also had games where all the empires were close in strength(which I loved, because those make for some tense situations).

I've even watched an AI go from less cities then the surrounding civs to conquer one...then conquer another..and so on until he took down the other five civs on that continent and was a superpower I couldn't hope to match. As for HoI(1-2) and Victoria being more complex thats up for debate, Civ just presents its information better so you don't have to go hunting for it.

Another word on combat in Civ4, theres sort of a paper-rock-scissors system going on that requires combined arms. For example Catapults are good against Melee(and can damage all units in a stack, making SoD a thing of the past) but Horse Archers are good gainst Catapults and spearmen are of course good against Horses. Its defined as Artilley/Melee/Horses obviously. Also Archers(finally) are the standard defensive unit until guns, they get bonuses when defending cities.

If you want a look at the techs and promotions, check this download of the tech-tree and promotion list. http://www.2kgames.com/civ4/downloads/civ4-techtree.zip

English assassin

10-27-2005, 18:09

Nuts, it DOES look good from the walkthrough. Oh well I'm afraid its looking like I'll have to get it...

you never really know if you are actually having fun when playing these games, but you just cannot stop

This is so true.

screwtype

10-27-2005, 18:42

Nuts, it DOES look good from the walkthrough.

Actually, having read the walkthrough, I personally got a rather unpleasant sense of deja vu as I was reminded of the old Civ3 game mechanics I eventually grew tired of. I also wasn't very reassured by the fact that city and unit building in Civ4 sounds even slower than the often glacial pace of the previous game.

Yeah, sure, this edition is slicker and snazzier than ever before - but do I really need another Civ title? I certainly don't need one badly enough to pay full price for it.

Hmmm, maybe I can wait a few months after all...

frogbeastegg

10-27-2005, 23:02

You know, the odd thing is that I've played CivII, CivIII, Call to power I and II, and I can't honestly say that I actually enjoyed any of them, despite wasting hours and hours with them and liking the general idea of guiding a civ from stone age to modern day. Alpha Centauri I did enjoy, and that game has a setting I don't care for and so much brown it goes right out the other side of brownness. Something wrong there. :inquisitive:

AC had so many more options, and I suppose that is what decided it for me. That and the diplomacy - it actually worked and with some depth too. The factions were customised, but unlike the attempt at the same in CivIII this never felt wrong and artificial.

Civ ... hmm, I'll echo others and say some ages finished too quickly and were little mroe than speedbumps on the path of advancement. Those ages were those I am most interested in. We shall speak not of pikes and tanks, or even stone age clubmen and tanks. It still makes me scowl.

I do have to say that I'm warily eyeing this thread, praying that the game is actually rubbish. I simply don't have time for another game, and if this one is good I know I'll be buying. And cursing as large chunks of my life turn into "Just one more turn ..." I already have enough of that with BI, thank you!

Mouzafphaerre

10-27-2005, 23:48

.
I installed CivIII, just to realize that it was cartoon. If I want cartoons, I go and watch Buggs Bunny or Flinstones, or even Smurfs, and I like them all. Threw it away the next day.

Then, when the first pre-release screenshots of the Pirates remake was out, it was all clear to me that Sid Meier is about cartoons. So be it, I have no problem with that. But I won't be playing such games.
.

Papewaio

10-27-2005, 23:53

Looks like in Civ 4 the diplomacy thing is fixed... the AI actually remembers you past actions and you can see some of the main pluses or minuses in your "Diplomacy Bank Account"

As for Tank vs Pike what I can gather is that not only is the chance proportional to the relative modified strengths but so is the damage.

I think (not confirmed) that if you have Str2 and your opponent Str1, it means you will damage is 2/3s of the time and it will damage you 1/3 of the time AND you do 2/1 points of damage and it does 1/2... or something rather close to that model as they mention a str 4 vs str 1 has a 98% chance of wining without other modifiers...

ChaosLord

10-28-2005, 03:36

Just when everyone is saying they want gameplay not graphics one guy has to complain about a TBS game looking like cartoons... Ok then.

Civ4 plays slow or fast depending apon the setting. I think theres short-normal-epic for the game modes with epic being like Civ3 was. The short-normal games you can finish in a day easily people have been saying.

And yes Papewaio it is like that from what i've heard. Firepower is back in, so a unit with double strength then other would be doing double the damage the other one is dishing out or something along those lines. I'm sure the various previews/reviews around could explain it better then I. But it was said that even 2 higher strength is a sizeable advantage in combat, so I dont' expect to be running into the low tech beating high tech units unless in very bad conditions.

All that said, i'm obviously biased towards Civ so perhaps i'm not the best source of info. You should really take a look at all the previews/reviews out, though those need to examined a bit closely too I suppose. Anyway, just check www.apolyton.net and its Civ4 section. Theres links to all current reviews and old previews, including ones by the beta testers from the civ community.

GoreBag

10-28-2005, 04:18

Then, when the first pre-release screenshots of the Pirates remake was out, it was all clear to me that Sid Meier is about cartoons.

But Pirates! is so much FUN! I may seem sarcastic, but I'm really just enthusiastic.

Papewaio

10-28-2005, 04:31

Civ IV Combat System (http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?threadid=140622&pagenumber=1)

Your current strength is also your hit points. Your current strength is used to do all the calculations for a battle.

So according to the link.

Round 1 Strength 2 vs Strength 1
Strength 2 will win a round 66% of the time and do 0.8 Strength points in damage leaving the lesser unit on a Strength of 0.2
The Strength 1 will win a round 33% of the time and do 0.1 Strength points in damage leaving the stronger unit on a Strength of 1.9

The same chances and damage are used throughout the combat.

The higher strength unit needs to win only twice. While the lesser unit needs to win 20 times... 1 in 3,486,784,401 chance of beating the stronger unit.

So it looks like the pike vs tank problem is solved.

Still reading it, but it looks like it is fairly close to that and higher strengths really mean something.

Mouzafphaerre

10-28-2005, 04:41

.
Probably I should have never spoken with the ultimate risk of insulting one of the many Sid Meier cult members. So I formally apologize and withdraw my comments. Civs are the best games ever made, is being made and will ever be made. :bow:
.

ChaosLord

10-28-2005, 04:50

You didn't insult me, i'm not quite that rabid a fan. I just thought it was odd that someone would have graphics as the entire reason he didn't play/like a strategy game. Naturally you're entitled to your opinion, but it didn't really sound like you even gave the series a chance.

Mouzafphaerre

10-28-2005, 05:43

.
Well, rather than graphics themselves, their -so to speak- underestimation as a gameplay element bugged me. Now something for you all to laught at: I didn't get the game myself. It was just sitting at the desk for whatever reason and I installed it out of curiousity. When I started to play I thought it was a title from maybe 1996 at best. (Didn't know a single thing about the series or Meier then.)

To be totally fair about it, I honestly loved the sense of humour in the opening cartoon movie. ~:)
.

GoreBag

10-28-2005, 05:53

The higher strength unit needs to win only twice. While the lesser unit needs to win 20 times... 1 in 3,486,784,401 chance of beating the stronger unit.

Not necessarily. The strength 1 unit would do more damage after having won one round of combat, and will be more likely to strike home again.

Papewaio

10-28-2005, 06:01

According to the link the strength used for Attack and Defense is what was at the start of combat, not the previous round.

ChaosLord

10-28-2005, 06:14

Are you sure it was CivIII you installed? The opening intro is just an overview of some mediteranen island showing work on some huge palace-like structure in stone age, then medieval, industrial, and finally modern as the camera rises and then it ends at the top. Not much but not funny either so you have me confused.

As for graphics as a gameplay element it wasn't really underestimated, enough companies have shown graphics can hide gameplay flaws. They just focused more on other things once an acceptable level was reached. Or so I guess anyway. I would imagine its also hard to represent entire worlds with photo-realistic quality with units and cities in the mix as well. But as i've said and you've ever-so-subtly hinted at, i'm biased in this area.

screwtype

10-28-2005, 06:30

.
When I started to play I thought it was a title from maybe 1996 at best.
.

Yeah, the graphics in the earlier games are really retro. Even when Conquests came out, they didn't bother giving it a graphics overhaul.

Pity, because cuter graphics in Conquests might have made the experience a little more attractive, to me at least. That, and some better control of your worker units. Man, I sure got tired of issuing commands to those little buggers...

screwtype

10-28-2005, 06:34

Civ IV Combat System (http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?threadid=140622&pagenumber=1)

I'm a little sorry they've changed this element. I thought combat worked pretty well in the previous game. The main problem was how long it all took. I sure hope they've done something to speed up the combat a bit. Oh, and the movement. I never want to see a game where the AI moves each and every one of its units individually again...

screwtype

10-28-2005, 06:54

BTW, I noticed in the walkthrough that the various civ leaders appear wearing clothing that is totally out of whack with the time period. I seem to recall in Civ3 that the clothing changed with the Civ's level of development. So this is one albeit minor change that is not for the better.

Also, I'm a little uncomfortable about seeing Gandhi in this game. Gandhi was a pacifist and an anti-imperialist and it doesn't seem appropriate to have him in a game of world conquest. He is also regarded by many as a saint in his home country. It seems a little sacrilegious to me - like making Jesus or Mohammed the civ leaders of Europe or Arabia...

ChaosLord

10-28-2005, 07:28

Civilization isn't just about conquest, you can win diplomatic/space race/culturual victory all without fighting or conquering anyone. So in that context especially with civics like pacifism and the like, you don't think Gandhi fits as a leader? But you're right about the clothing thing, its a bit odd to see Julius sporting a toga in 2000AD. Also, I think theres an option for fast combat resolution.

Papewaio

10-28-2005, 07:48

Gandhi has been in all the Civs and has always lead a (relatively) peaceful civilisation. Nor would I equate him with Jesus or Mohammed. He is a peaceful version of Washington or Napolean or Attaturk. He was a political leader who used pacifism to gain independance for his country not a religous founder.

English assassin

10-28-2005, 10:23

I can't quite work out how the new combat thing is supposed to work but if I've got it right it solves pike v tank at the expense of creating a new problem, roughly speaking, "more powerful unit always wins".

Or rather, it looks like that will be the case in early eras when the relative difference between units attack and defense strengths is much higher. Eg, in Civ III terms, where a horseman had an attack of 2 and a warrior a defence of 1, attack is double defense and, it seems, that sort of advantage will be crushing. Later on, the equivalent battle, something like tank vs infantry, where the relative values might be 16 to 12 (I can't remember precisely), will be a lot more even.

If that's right, early era uber attackers will be just as much of an artifact as later era retro defenders were.

I don't see why, after FOUR games, they can't get this right. I mean, there aren't that many units in the game, they could probably get away with a simple look up table that lists all possible combats and just puts in a % chance of success by hand. EG Knights attacking pikes defending, 10% of attacker winning, tanks attacking pikes defending, 99% chance of attacker winning. Then put terrain etc as modifiers to the basic percentage and generate a random number.

Kalle

10-28-2005, 11:57

What are you on about people???

Civilization from number I-III (allthough III was both steps forward and backward) are clearly the best campaign, turn based empire building games ever.

In comparison totalwar campaigns suck, europa universalis games suck (god i hate how they handle battles and units in europa universalis soooo booring). Allthough there are elements in these games that civ should learn from.

I will find out about civ IV today yeeeeeeehaaaaaaaaaaa :)

Kalle

Mouzafphaerre

10-28-2005, 12:54

econ21

10-28-2005, 14:13

Civilization from number I-III (allthough III was both steps forward and backward) are clearly the best campaign, turn based empire building games ever.

In comparison totalwar campaigns suck, ...

Different folks, different strokes. I found Civ2 to be about the most addictive game ever (electronic crack), but also strangely unsatisfying. I ended up concluding it was just not fun and I'd been wasting my time. But just one more turn...

By contrast, I can walk away from TW games almost anytime, but when I do find them, I relish them. (Maybe you are distinguishing the campaign map part of the game from the battle map part, in which case, I kind of see your point.)

IMO, comparing Civ to TW is kind of like comparing doing sudoku to listening to fine music.

ChaosLord

10-28-2005, 15:05

Strength is the base factor English Assassin, theres many things that modify it. Like Archers get bonuses to defense in cities, Axemen get bonuses versus melee units, Spearmen get bonuses versus mounted units, Mounted units get bonuses against artillery. And artillery gets a bonus versus melee and has the ability to damage all units in a stack in an attack. They're also like Civ2-Civ1 in that it has to actually attack not just bombard.

In addition to all this cities provide a substantial defensive bonus, so you can't simply run over your neighbors with hordes the latest most powerful unit of the era once you get it. If you want to actually capture anything but a poorly defended city you'll need combined arms including artillery so you can destroy the defenses in the city and negate their bonus.

From all i've heard its been balanced quite well, and of course unit abilities aren't limited to just those. Units gaining experience in this is handled by gaining promotions, these promotions able to grant them abilities like bonuses attack cities(City Raider I-III), or bonus versus Archers/Guns(Cover), or the one i'm definitly going to be using the ability to use enemy roads(Commando). Theres thirty some-odd promotions in all so theres alot of combinations/setups possible.

So yeah, you really can't just look at base unit strength for comparing units.

And yeah Simon Appleton is right, you can't really compare the two. TW is focused on a time period and around the battles, whereas Civ tries to span many time periods and be open to peaceful or agressive strategies.

English assassin

10-28-2005, 15:13

Well, fair enough, I think maybe I should actually play it before I bitch about it. ~:)

Although in some ways I'm reluctant to get that addiction going again...

UglyandHasty

10-28-2005, 19:51

I'll get it tonight. Took me 6 phone call before finally finding a shop with a copy on sale. Most shop only had the pre-ordered copy.

solypsist

10-28-2005, 20:06

i might get it once i get back home. hmmm..../looks for cheatcodes

Ser Clegane

10-28-2005, 20:40

Bought it yesterday evening - and smuggled it into the house past Mrs. Clegane :shifty:

UglyandHasty

10-28-2005, 21:13

Bought it yesterday evening - and smuggled it into the house past Mrs. Clegane :shifty:

LOL I wish i could do that, unfortunatly, Mrs U&H is the one paying the bills and surveying the accounts! I have to settle for the angry eyes ~;)

Papewaio

10-28-2005, 22:19

GodsPetMonkey

10-29-2005, 00:22

Customs in Australia recently put in a new computer system... it is delaying all and I mean all shipments by days and upto weeks. The docks are overflowing. All critical stuff is getting through.

PC games are not on that list, so it will be a while before it hits the stores... unless one of the guys who installed the customs system is a civ fan and gets it through quicker.

I think you just worked out what on those new computer systems is delaying all those shipments!

"We really gotta get all that stuff moving! The boss is ticked!"
"But, but... Just ONE more turn"

ChaosLord

10-29-2005, 01:09

There are 650 turns in an epic game, and things are produced/researched more slowly. Next is 430 turns in a normal game and things produced/researched at the "normal" rate. And lastly 295 turns in a quick game where things are produced/researched faster. If you need a comparison, the standard game in in Civ3 was 540 turns. So normal will be faster then regular Civ3, and epic will be longer, with quick being for short games.

screwtype

10-29-2005, 06:35

Customs in Australia recently put in a new computer system... it is delaying all and I mean all shipments by days and upto weeks. The docks are overflowing. All critical stuff is getting through.

PC games are not on that list, so it will be a while before it hits the stores... unless one of the guys who installed the customs system is a civ fan and gets it through quicker.

They still haven't even managed to get BI to my local EB store yet. But Civ4 will be arriving on Nov 3 or 4. However you have to pre-order because there's a lot of demand.

I was going to pre-order, but I just can't convince myself I like the Civ paradigm enough to pay $89.95 for it...

screwtype

10-29-2005, 06:38

There are 650 turns in an epic game, and things are produced/researched more slowly.

I don't call that "epic". When I first started playing Civ3, I played a couple of "huge" campaigns where I actually ran out of turns. 540 turns is the default in a Civ3 game.

However you can set it to a maximum of 1000 turns and that's what I do with every Civ3 game now. I'll be disappointed if you can't set it at least that high in Civ4.

frogbeastegg

10-29-2005, 09:36

~:mecry: I pre-ordered it, ready for the UK release. ~:mecry:

My feeble willpower, already near breaking point thanks to reading some very good stuff about the game on another forum, crumbled when I saw it was £15 off and eligable for free delivery on amazon.uk.

I feel very doomed now. ~:mecry:

The_Doctor

10-29-2005, 10:30

I feel very doomed now.

Sid has taken another soul.

However you can set it to a maximum of 1000 turns and that's what I do with every Civ3 game now. I'll be disappointed if you can't set it at least that high in Civ4.

It says the game is very moddable. So you could increase the number of turns, the cost of each tech/unit/building.

frogbeastegg

10-29-2005, 16:16

A question, now you have all helped drag the frog into something she hoped to stay clear of for the sake of her life and sanity (oh, the perils of being a mod! Although I admit it was my own stupidity which led to me reading the thread on the other forum): does Civ4 support hotseat MP? As in 2 people playing on one PC?

Now, a second question, one which is more musing out aloud assuming the abopve question is answered "Yes.": when my boyfriend inevitably asks if he can play too, would it be crueller to refuse to let him play, or to let him play?

The_Doctor

10-29-2005, 16:36

does Civ4 support hotseat MP?

Yes. There are quite a lot of MP features.
http://www.civfanatics.com/civ4/info/#MP

would it be crueller to refuse to let him play, or to let him play?

Not letting him play.

By letting him play you can control him completely. It will be like a new type of feudalism, but instead of giving land to their followers, rulers give them a few turns of civ4.

It will be called a Civocracy.~:eek:

Sasaki Kojiro

10-30-2005, 07:32

hmm, I played it a bit. The whole founding cities/exploring to see where the resources are/getting to them before the other civs bit was quite fun...but the military strategy of the AI seemed to consist entirely of putting garrisons in there cities and leaving them there. One game germany had about 10 cities to my 4 and 5 times the units I had, but the left them all in cities and I captured them one by one. Brilliant. The other thing that bugged me was that there was no advantage to outnumbering your opponent, you could only attack one of their units with one yours. Yeah sure, that makes sense. Granted the battles aren't going to be like Shogun, but EU2 was a grand strategy game and had battles that made perfect sense...wars were very enjoyable.

And George Washington leading the United States to discover hinduism in 3800 BC with Moses as the great Hindu prophet is just weird.

Never played any of the other civs.

GoreBag

10-30-2005, 08:17

Apples and Oranges. Admittedly, Civ is a much broader scale than the EU games, and EU is real-time. It's intended to be a different experience and they're not really comparable except by "I had more fun with this game".

screwtype

10-30-2005, 08:35

hmm, I played it a bit. The whole founding cities/exploring to see where the resources are/getting to them before the other civs bit was quite fun...but the military strategy of the AI seemed to consist entirely of putting garrisons in there cities and leaving them there. One game germany had about 10 cities to my 4 and 5 times the units I had, but the left them all in cities and I captured them one by one. Brilliant.

Isn't there an option for changing the AI's level of aggression? There was in the previous title, and it made a big difference.

The other thing that bugged me was that there was no advantage to outnumbering your opponent, you could only attack one of their units with one yours. Yeah sure, that makes sense.

Yeah, that's how the previous combat engine worked, and though it can be very frustrating (and slow), it does at least make for a considerable challenge.

And don't forget you also enjoy the same advantage when defending your own cities.

And George Washington leading the United States to discover hinduism in 3800 BC with Moses as the great Hindu prophet is just weird.

Hard to argue with that ~:)

frogbeastegg

10-30-2005, 18:39

Thanks for that.

By letting him play you can control him completely.
Hehe! I already do; the poor dear loves me. :loveg: Fair's fair; I'm inordinately fond of him too, which is why I wonder about keeping him from Civ4 for his own good ...

screwtype

10-31-2005, 23:35

Well I just hope it's better than Civ3. I spent the last two or three days playing it, to get a feel for the Civ paradigm again.

After a few aborted campaigns I finally thought I had things figured out again, so I went for it in my next campaign. I started a war in 300AD against Egypt. I had the advantage of horses and iron, Egypt had neither.

700 years later I had managed to capture two whole Egyptian cities, it cost me 16 hours of real time to do that.

The game is evil.

GoreBag

11-01-2005, 00:04

After screwing around with the ATI problem and not being able to run the game due to CD-mounting software on my harddrive, I fianlly got the game to work and spent all day on it. Then, I got a CTD...I never saved once. Thankfully, there's an auto-save function.

I can probably provide a more in-depth review once I settle down and get a hold of this 'just one more turn' problem I've picked up.

The_Doctor

11-01-2005, 10:45

So it is good?

What is the medieval scenario like?

Slyspy

11-02-2005, 02:18

Sounds to me that it is more or less the same as CivIII which I found rather boring. But then I had played CivII to death so perhaps thats why the sequels hold no charm for me....

PS Just read Simon Appleton's post above and agree aout Civ completely. I also get that feeling about RTW though.

GoreBag

11-02-2005, 06:05

I find the music kind of muted/diluted, but it does play.

Arcanum

11-02-2005, 10:58

In my opinion Civilization 4 is far better than Civilization 3, in all aspects. The combat system aswell as the AI.

Currently i'm in a game with Rome, around renaissance, I played OVERLY aggressive, meaning that I already had war with 10 of the 14 (I believe) factions.

I won every single war with them with another City to be mine, or at least defended myself well, as I must be the most hated men in all the world.

The combat system is working so much better than Civ 3, which was simply frustrating and irritating. Now you can look up your odds and you get a feeling of what will win and how you can reduce the enemies chances to win significantly.

Only attacking with one unit - granted - isn't too logical. But I always try to see it as symbolism ~D
And HEY?! What do you expect, they will not change the whole Civ system, just because they got into 3D.

The Government management is so much better and more complex, while a lot easier to handle.

As for the AI: I'm playing on Noble (yeah, im a wuss) as that is the latest non-frustrating setting, as the AI is not cheating there, heh. And I get several big-scale organized attacks in the beginning of a war that I did not declare, for example.The AI positions itself well on hills and gets good defensive bonuses, also they use catapults well and their arm combinations are interesting. The sole reason why I am winning, is that my economy is better than theirs, beeing the largest,wealthiest and one of the most advanced civilizations that I am,simply because the defensive bonuses of cities and such are darn well big factors if you didnt know the meaning of the word "Catapult" for the half of the game. ~;)
Now of course everything has changed and I am using them, which is good for my own sake, because even the smallest state could destroy me in an offensive war without me having them.

Darn well, play the game and be silent! (I got the game on the 29th or so, by the way :) )

Ohh! And just another point to mention:
The Diplomacy!
It is just gorgous how good it is, the system with the enemy seeing pros- and cons- of a relation with you and if youre not a good neighbour, expect to get attacked at the best opportunity!

Alright, thats all for now. I slept around 4 hours...I am tired.

screwtype

11-02-2005, 22:17

screwtype

11-03-2005, 04:19

Okay, I bought the game, and first impressions are not that good.

To start with, my CD player will not recognize the disk at all! - the first time this has ever happened. But I think I've read that other people are also having this problem.

Fortunately, I also have a DVD writer, and was able to install and play it using that.

As for the game itself, well I've only fooled around with it for a couple of hours, but I'm finding it a lot less intuitive than Civ3. The method of moving units in the new game seems especially clumsy - you have to select the unit, then select the "move" icon at the bottom of the screen, then click on the map where you want the unit to go. In Civ3 all the units are auto selected for you one after the other and you just click on the map where you want them to move. I didn't notice any prompts to move my units at all with this game.

The other thing I don't much like is the game is eerily quiet. I always play games with the music off but there don't seem to be many audio cues to add a little flavour or help you out. And much of the personality is gone - you still have "advisors" but they are no longer human beings that pop up and talk to you about stuff in little speech bubbles, now the advisor is just the info screen itself, which sucks.

So I'm just not finding the presentation very engaging, which suprised me because I thought the presentation could only be enhanced with the improved graphics.

Also, in spite of the supposed great moddability of the game, there appears to be no way to mod the number of turns, which again in my opinion deeply sucks. And there don't seem to be as many options you can set regarding the sort of world you want to play in, or if they are there they are again not presented in a straightforward way.

Anyhow, as I said these are only first impressions, it's early days yet and I'll have to play it for a while before coming to a definite conclusion.

GoreBag

11-03-2005, 07:59

screwtype

11-03-2005, 10:56

You can right-click to move. I've noticed very little difference between it and the go-to function.

I was disappointed about the advisors as well, but the other leaders have plenty of personality, I think. They'll even cringe or grind their teeth if you ask them about another leader they dislike.

That sounds good, but you don't visit the diplomacy screen very often. At least that's how it was in the earlier game.

I'm very suprised they got rid of the human advisors. They were a highly popular and much celebrated feature of Civ3.

I really miss my advisors ~:(

The_Doctor

11-03-2005, 21:50

What is the medieval scenario like?

I finally get it tomorrow.~:)

screwtype

11-04-2005, 01:08

Dunno, haven't looked. I'm still struggling with the new features of the game. But I can tell you there are definitely some changes for the better in Civ4. In gameplay I mean, not just graphics and glitz.

GoreBag

11-04-2005, 03:58

What is the medieval scenario like?

I finally get it tomorrow.~:)

Well, I haven't played the medieval scenario per se, but I've played through the medieval period twice now. It's a little more developed than Civ 3, I'd say, what with more melee units, and an added focus on resources in order to produce them (copper or iron). The scramble to get the resources to produce axes has caused some pretty fun conflicts in my last game. The Horse Archer unit has also been added.

ChaosLord

11-04-2005, 08:02

Arcanum, I heard there is still a limit on the number of game turns you can play. I can't believe they still have this feature, assuming there is no way to mod it.

In Civ3 the default was 540 but you could crank it up to 1000. 540 wasn't enough in my experience but I've never played a campaign past 1000 turns. So what is the limit in Civ4?

screwtype, modding the number of turns is easy. You just need to edit the Civ4\Assets\XML\GameInfo\Civ4GameSpeedInfo.XML file. That has the length of each each gametypes turns. So if you want infinite turns you'd just add something like this:

<GameTurnInfo>
<iYearIncrement>1</iYearIncrement>
<iTurnsPerIncrement>10000</iTurnsPerIncrement>
</GameTurnInfo>

after the last </GameTurnInfo> into a section for one of the speed type sections but before </GameTurnInfos>. That'd give you 1 turn per year after 2050 for 10000 turns, enough to finish any game. I don't really see the need though, the AI is pretty good at winning spaceship/diplomacy victories before time runs out. Also like in Civ3 you can simply choose to continue playing once time runs out or an AI civ wins, it just won't record score anymore.

If you need an XML editor to make those changes, I suggest SciTE. You can dl it from here: http://gisdeveloper.tripod.com/scite.html

If you do edit the XML file to use it without having to backup and replace the original just create a subfolder in the Mods folder in the Civilization4 directory. Then put the folers/files in it like it is normaly. So Mods\Yourmod\Assets\XML\GameInfo\Youreditedfile.xml would be the folders/files you add. Theres also an ini file needed, just look at the other mods and copy one of theirs, just like 5 lines. Then you just load the mod ingame or change the "Mod =" section in the Civilization4.ini file to point to your mods folder "Mod = Mods\Yourmod" it'll load it on startup then.

Anyway, just thought i'd help, you can do alot with the XML files and even more with the python, but some stuff you have to look around to find. I would have posted here earlier but i've been playing it too much, this has to be the most addictive one of the series.

screwtype

11-04-2005, 13:38

Okay I've played the game enough now to draw a conclusion and I'm afraid it's not a nice one.

I saw in the designers' notes to the game that they are congratulating themselves for thinking up clever ways to reduce the micromanagement burden from the previous games. In fact what they've done is turn the game into an even greater micromanagement nightmare.

In the previous game, all you had to manage was citizen happiness. But now they've added health to the equation, so you not only have to keep your citizens happy but healthy as well.

In addition I find that most of the bonuses you get from buildings etc are too complicated to be able to assess easily, and it's the same problem with the Civics. Again, I see in their notes that the designers think strategy games are all about creating tension-filled choices. So they give you a bunch of Civics that have both advantages and drawbacks. The end result is that it's very difficult to be able to figure out what advantages there are if any of one Civic over another. So there's little sense of achievement in getting some new Civic. And this kind of problem persists throughout the game.

Also I find there's no real sense of character or personality about the things you build. In a game like Age of Wonders, for instance, your city improvements really have a meaningful impact on gameplay. But it's all so incremental in Civ that buildings tend to lose any sense of identity, it's just an extra health point here and a culture point there, or some esoteric this-building-gives-me-an-extra-smiley-if-I-also-have-silk-in-my-resources formula. So you just end up slogging your way through one building after another after another to try and get a bit of functionality into your city. I mean, all computer games are ultimately about counting. But the idea of a game is that the counting is hidden from view in an entertaining package. In Civ, the underlying arithmetic is only too glaringly obvious.

I also have a problem with a lot of the basic design decisions. For example the designers note that they gave builders two moves so they could move and build something in the same turn. Okay, that's fair enough as far as it goes. But then, why do builders need a movement rating at all? With game turns measured in years, what's the point? You should be able to just pick up a builder and drop him anywhere in your territory when you want to build something. You should not have to run him from A to B, or worse still, have to transport him overseas on those Galleys with their piddling two tile movement rate so it takes you 50 or 100 years to get them where you want them! This is just more micromanagement hell.

I'd also like to know why after all this time there aren't separate build queues for units and buildings - especially given the long build times for buildings in this game. And why does it have to take so long to build military units anyhow? There's already an effective limit on the amount of military units you can build because of the gold it takes to support them.

It seems to me this game would be a LOT more interesting if you were able to churn out military units at a much faster clip. You might then actually be able to have some fun fighting wars without your entire tech development and economy falling catastrophically behind the other powers. As it is you can rarely afford to build a military unit because of the time it takes away from city improvements. It totally sucks.

There are some modest improvements in the game here and there, particularly in the glitz department. They did get rid of corruption thank goodness, and what they replaced it with seems to work quite well. But overall I still find the whole thing largely an exercise in frustration and tedium. This is a game that is desperately in search of a good dose of elegant simplicity.

PS Thanks for the info on turn modding ChaosLord.

The_Doctor

11-04-2005, 22:29

I have it.~:cheers:

And it is incredibly slow.~:mecry: I only have 256MB of RAM. I need a hell of a lot more to run it properly. Luckly RAM is cheap now. I have turned all the options to low, which helped a lot.

I have not played it much, yet. Mainly becuase it is so slow.

I tried the medieval scenario. It took over half an hour to load, and then it was too slow to do anything. It is very well made. The map is of the earth with lots of civs and preplaced cities and religions. It looks like a lot of fun.

How access the editor outside of the game?

I really like the music on the menu screen.

screwtype

11-05-2005, 01:09

I've got a gigabyte. It runs fine on my machine. Except that the music doesn't work properly.

The_Doctor

11-05-2005, 01:23

That is twice the recommanded amount, so it would be fast.

The_Doctor

11-05-2005, 01:45

There might be memory leak. But, as you say, the patch will fix things. It comes out next week.

Papewaio

11-05-2005, 06:30

I'd also like to know why after all this time there aren't separate build queues for units and buildings - especially given the long build times for buildings in this game. And why does it have to take so long to build military units anyhow? There's already an effective limit on the amount of military units you can build because of the gold it takes to support them.

I thought everything had a separate building queue. You could stop building something switch to something else, and once finished come back and begin where you left off... no transfer of production from one queue to another, and the only time shields turn to gold was for a wonder that was piped by someone else building it... mind you all I can do in Aus is READ about it. ~:mecry:

screwtype

11-05-2005, 09:32

I thought everything had a separate building queue. You could stop building something switch to something else, and once finished come back and begin where you left off... no transfer of production from one queue to another, and the only time shields turn to gold was for a wonder that was piped by someone else building it... mind you all I can do in Aus is READ about it. ~:mecry:

I guess it depends whereabouts in Oz you live, because I live in Melbourne and it arrived at the local EB store on Thursday. It took them ages to get BI though - that only just got here last week.

And what you're describing is not really a separate building queue. Yes, the game does appear to have some sort of "stop working on this and come back to it later" feature. But it isn't a separate pipeline, you can still only build one thing at a time. I'd prefer an RTW type system, where you have a separate queue for each.

But in any case, I really think on reflecton that the better solution is not a separate build queue, but just the ability to churn out military units in a turn or two, like RTW. The glacial pace with which you're forced to create an army makes the military option almost unviable.

Efrem

11-05-2005, 12:31

I saw Civ 4 at myers in the city yesterday Pape.

screwtype

11-05-2005, 15:33

I really don't like the interface, either. It's alot less intuitive than Civ 3's was. Especially with the lack of good right-click menus.

I believe you can reactivate those menus. It's in the preferences somewhere.

But yeah the interface is less intuitive. The new iconified Civopedia is a step backwards.

frogbeastegg

11-05-2005, 17:50

Civ 4 thumped through my letterbox this morning just as I was leaving for work. It nearly crushed my foot.

The manual is the fattest I have seen since Age of Wonders 2, hurrah! And the poster is good too. The disc looks all shiny and disc-like. The box is all box-ish. Hmm, I guess I should install and play it. That generally helps :tongueg:

doc_bean

11-05-2005, 18:27

For some reason I got an incredible craving for civ yesterday, so I went out and bought it, even though I've only had civ3 for a year or so and haven't really played it that much...

A couple of quick points about the game

The Tutorial: I started by playing this, digital Sid is scary ! It's pretty buggy too, not a good start.

The interface: I preferred the old Civ3 one, but it isn't that bad

The graphics: prettiest civ game, but that's not saying much, they do the job.

A first quick game: I picked the Mali and played it them on the easiest setting. Don't use the easiest setting ! It provides no challenge what so ever, I got a pretty good idea about the changes though, I quit around 1400AD and went to bed.

The manual: I read most of it this morning, it sure is big ! A couple of translation mishaps and misspellings though. Pretty annoying

A second quick game: I picked the good old US and played on warlord (third difficulty level, just under the fair 'Noble'). I had a comfortable lead on my neighbours throughout the game, I never got involved in a single war. I lost when caesar finished his space ship 2 turns before me (hey I was exploring the game and didn't really concentrate on winning until the end). It seemed a lot easier then Civ3 on a comparable level though, so what if i didn't win, i didn't feel like I got a real challenge either.
A quick game can be finished in an afternoon -, I rather like this. I assume epic is needed if you want to be a serious warmonger though.

screwtype

11-05-2005, 23:13

I'm having second thoughts about the game right now. It's probably better than I thought. It just takes you a while to get to grips with the new interface and the new techs and so on.

In fact at this stage, I'm inclined to go out on a limb and say I think it's probably considerably better than Civ3. There seem to be a lot more options and strategies you can employ, like the new Civics for example.

It's a game that really rewards a bit of careful study. A read of the manual, especially the tech tree, doesn't go astray.

The_Doctor

11-06-2005, 00:31

I'm having second thoughts about the game right now. It's probably better than I thought. It just takes you a while to get to grips with the new interface and the new techs and so on.

I concare, your excellence.

econ21

11-06-2005, 02:35

I've been having some fun playing it hot seat with my son today. The "feel" of it (graphics, I guess) reminds me a lot of Civ3 - it's not the kind of leap that you see from MTW=>RTW (or Civ2=>Civ3). The gameplay also seems very like both games - I can't say I've spotted a single "major" innovation (equivalent to the MTW=>RTW strategy map difference, for example). I guess if you have got a good thing - it feels like Civ2 but with modern production values that my son can accept. I am especially to know there's no extreme corruption (one shield producing cities once you get past 20 or so) like Civ3 as that was very clunky and put me off that iteration a lot.

Small things: I like the diplomacy so far - at least the feedback about why civs like or don't like you. I like the retention of culture, one interesting new feature from Civ2.

The Wonders and some of the old favorite techs I aimed for in Civ2 seem a little watered down - I raced for the Great Library, but it seemed a bit anti-climatic. Ditto monarchy. But I rather this early stage of learning a game and not knowing exactly what I should be prioritising - in Civ2, it got to be like walking a tightrope, trying to nab the key wonders and win on Deity etc. It's nice to be able to blunder around and learn from your mistakes.

The manual is a real old style game manual, full of content. I haven't read thoroughly it yet, but first glance it seems less well laid out than some earlier ones I recall. For example, there's no quick start for Civ vets or even a list of the major changes. The indexing/contents are not ideal, either. I could not find out about "upgrading" units - the in-game content seems to imply you can change a pikeman into a riflemen or something, but I couldn't find it in the units sections of either the basic or advanced parts of the manual.

No real problems with the interface or presentation, except some batt+les - played MP hotseat - aren't shown. As player 1, I just hear my scout has been eaten by wolves or the barbarians attacked my city - I don't see it, which is a pity.

I also haven't heard Leonard Nimoy - I thought he did some voicework for techs? The only speech I've encountered has been Sid in the tutorial.

Ser Clegane

11-06-2005, 09:26

I also haven't heard Leonard Nimoy - I thought he did some voicework for techs? The only speech I've encountered has been Sid in the tutorial.

Each time you discover a new tech, Leonard cites a historical quote that fits the discovery.
I am not sure if there is an option to disable it, but by default it seems to be turned on ~:confused:

screwtype

11-06-2005, 12:01

I've been having some fun playing it hot seat with my son today. The "feel" of it (graphics, I guess) reminds me a lot of Civ3 - it's not the kind of leap that you see from MTW=>RTW (or Civ2=>Civ3).

I disagree with that. I think the graphics in Civ4 are WAY better than Civ3 and a major step forward. The game's a pleasure to look at now, you couldn't say that about Civ3. Perhaps you just haven't played Civ3 for a while. You might be remembering its graphics as better than they were.

The gameplay also seems very like both games - I can't say I've spotted a single "major" innovation (equivalent to the MTW=>RTW strategy map difference, for example).

I actually think the gameplay changes between Civ3 and 4 are greater than those between MTW and RTW. The campaign map in RTW doesn't add much to the overall gameplay in my view. In fact in some ways it detracts from gameplay.

There are at least two major innovations in Civ4 that come to mind. First is the abolition of corruption. I really hated that feature and so did a lot of gamers. If you read the designers' notes in the manual, corruption was originally introduced to stop the tactic of "ICS" - infinite city spamming, which was an easy way to win the game.

What they've replaced it with instead is a maintenance cost and distance penalty for new cities which I think works very well. In my current campaign for example, I found a large area of undeveloped territory and thought I was made, I started spamming cities in it as fast as possible and then suddenly noticed that my finances were deep in the red! I had to wind my 100% research rate right back to 10% and even now much later in the game I've still only managed to get it back to 50%.

The new system creates an excellent tension between city spamming and financial health, you now have to decide which is more important, or try for a balance. You can still expand your empire of course, but now it depends upon building up your wealth through trade, development, expanding the population in your existing cities and research of appropriate techs. It changes the whole dynamic of the game.

The second major innovation is the introduction of Civics instead of Governments, which gives you a much larger and more flexible set of government conditions you can set or reset. Combine it with the new more flexible research chart, where you no longer have multiple prerequisites for researching certain techs, and you have a far wider range of strategies to choose from in developing your empire.

Apart from these changes there is also the introduction of Great People, which some gamers swear by (I've yet to figure out a way to really exploit them), the introduction of city health as well as happiness, the fact that a single disgruntled citizen no longer brings your entire city to a halt, unit promotions, spread of religion, greater movement for workers, autoexplore for units - yada yada yada. These are early days yet, but I'm finding it a much more compelling package than Civ3.

I am especially to know there's no extreme corruption (one shield producing cities once you get past 20 or so) like Civ3 as that was very clunky and put me off that iteration a lot.

Ditto.

Small things: I like the diplomacy so far - at least the feedback about why civs like or don't like you.

Yeah, that's another good little feature. In terms of pure colour, I find the leader animations quite amusing as well!

I like the retention of culture, one interesting new feature from Civ2.

Not sure what you're referring to here. I never played Civ2.

The Wonders and some of the old favorite techs I aimed for in Civ2 seem a little watered down - I raced for the Great Library, but it seemed a bit anti-climatic. Ditto monarchy. But I rather this early stage of learning a game and not knowing exactly what I should be prioritising - in Civ2, it got to be like walking a tightrope, trying to nab the key wonders and win on Deity etc. It's nice to be able to blunder around and learn from your mistakes.

Yeah, the wonders are completely changed and it's a mistake to go for your old favourites thinking they still grant the same bonuses. I made the same mistake early too, and it's one of the reasons I had the initial impression that the Wonders are not as effective as before.

The new Wonders actually seem to open up new possibilites within the game. I never even bothered trying to win the culture wars in Civ3, but it's clear you could do it in Civ4. So options other than pure conquest are, I think, more viable than they once were. Certainly more viablie than in Civ3, which some players believe is a conquest-centric game.

The manual is a real old style game manual, full of content. I haven't read thoroughly it yet, but first glance it seems less well laid out than some earlier ones I recall. For example, there's no quick start for Civ vets or even a list of the major changes. The indexing/contents are not ideal, either. I could not find out about "upgrading" units - the in-game content seems to imply you can change a pikeman into a riflemen or something, but I couldn't find it in the units sections of either the basic or advanced parts of the manual.

That's a good point, yes I think they forgot to document the upgrading. But you find out soon enough anyhow.

It's nice to have a thick manual in a game for a change. It's almost worth the new game price tag. My guess is that the manual will go electronic for a later discount release.

No real problems with the interface or presentation, except some batt+les - played MP hotseat - aren't shown. As player 1, I just hear my scout has been eaten by wolves or the barbarians attacked my city - I don't see it, which is a pity.

That's a shame to hear. Game designers always seem to do this with hotseat. I think it's something of a poor cousin to MP.

Is it possible to swap Civs halfway through a game using hotseat? That's a feature I like in a game, but it's not often seen anymore.

I also haven't heard Leonard Nimoy - I thought he did some voicework for techs? The only speech I've encountered has been Sid in the tutorial.

I've got Leonard loud and clear. He's not as good as they say he is. But it does add a nice human touch.

I do however have no sound at all during the opening credits and the Wonder anims, since I turned off the in-game sound. That's not how it's supposed to work. The game definitely has some sound issues. Hopefully they can eventually be fixed.

frogbeastegg

11-06-2005, 19:27

Agreed on the digital Sid comment. Brrr :shivers:

I played the tutorial, so my impressions are limited. I also haven't had time to read the manual yet. All in all I'm favourable, though not loving. Many of the ideas I like the sound of I haven't really seen in action, like the diplomacy and the city support mechanism thingy.

My overall impression from the tutorial is of many nice little touches and a lot I wish to explore.

I am being hit by a load of silly little glitches and bugs, and that really spoils, no - ruins things for me. When the civic screen doesn't show all of its text properly it's impossible to tell what civic you are running, let alone what it does and what you can change to. The wonder movies don't work - they flash along at one frame per 5 seconds, and that frame shows as blank blackness instead of a picture. I have to randomly click about the box until I hit the invisible 'ok' button. The strangest thing is that for the first 15 minutes or so the gasme was perfectly alright; it slowly de-generated into such a mess I quit because it was unplayable.

I've just changed my ati drivers, so this may help. :grumble: I get graphical bugs in BI too, and I've tried 3 lots of drivers with that and no success. I begin to wonder if the card did actually get damaged when my PC was fried by a thunderstorm, after all ...

As far as sound goes, it's really quiet, although turned up to maximum. I haven't meddled with my PC's control panel either; this volume level works fine for everything else I've run in the last year or so. Grrr. I don't want to need to alter it, because it's hard to get it precisely back as it should be, and inevitably I forget at some point and then deafen myself.

I do have music, however. That's both a good and a bad point. It's quite neat how the music fades in and out as you zoom the map. But the music stops at my favoured zoom level; one tiny fraction further out and it plays. I presume at closer zoom levels you can hear the wildlife and so on? It's too quiet on my PC to tell.

The music I've heard has been quite nice. The (A? Not sure if there are more than one in this style. I suspect so) medieval choir one especially. I have the contents of the soundtrack file playing now via mediaplayer, so it's obviously made a good impression, and I only wish I could hear more of it (in both senses of the word) in-game.

I'm going to hit the tech forums and see if there are any threads on the problems I'm having, then I'll see if the new drivers helped.

screwtype

11-06-2005, 21:06

I do have music, however. That's both a good and a bad point. It's quite neat how the music fades in and out as you zoom the map. But the music stops at my favoured zoom level; one tiny fraction further out and it plays. I presume at closer zoom levels you can hear the wildlife and so on? It's too quiet on my PC to tell.

You don't have the ambient sounds? Yeah, there is quite a bit of wildlife sfx, hammering sounds from your workers, wind, waves and so on. Be a bummer not to have them, I like my ambient sounds ~:)

I'm going to hit the tech forums and see if there are any threads on the problems I'm having, then I'll see if the new drivers helped.

Sorry to hear about your problems, I guess I've been lucky because so far the game has worked fine for me. The only problem is with the anti-aliasing. If I turn it up full bore the game falls asleep for minutes at a time and the Civics screens are corrupted. I can play on AAx2 with only a small delay and the odd missing tooltip, and with AA off altogether it runs fine.

econ21

11-06-2005, 22:09

This is probably not the place to ask, but I have mechanics query that is gnawing at me and I wonder if someone here has the answer - I have two cities that are ploughing their food surplus into production. They are both cities that I want to grow, not produce but I can't tell why this is happening or how to stop it. Thanks for any advice!

frogbeastegg

11-06-2005, 22:10

No, no ambient sounds unless I zoom so far in I can hardly see, and even then they are very, very quiet.

I did sort out the music and speech, and I'm rather proud of the Cunning Plan(TM) I invented to do so - I used a free program called MP3Gain to increase the volume of all the MP3s in civ4, so they play a little louder.

The music continues to be very pleasant, now I can hear it properly. I quite like the title screen song.

It seems the civ4 tech forums on the two sites I looked at (apolyton and civfanatics) are swarmnig with people having all sorts of troubles. Mine were mostly unique, and, judging from the 3 hours I just played, fixed.

Ooooh! My eyes! My poor eyes! I don't like staring at a screen for this long. But I found these nice clumps of resources which just begged for a city or two, and then I found these barbarians, and some barbarian cities, and then I got into a war with the barbarians, and ...

doc_bean

11-06-2005, 22:22

The_Doctor

11-07-2005, 00:40

Ooooh! My eyes! My poor eyes! I don't like staring at a screen for this long. But I found these nice clumps of resources which just begged for a city or two, and then I found these barbarians, and some barbarian cities, and then I got into a war with the barbarians, and ...

I know what you mean. I just won the American War of Indepence as the Americans.

Papewaio

11-07-2005, 01:00

I've just changed my ati drivers, so this may help. :grumble: I get graphical bugs in BI too, and I've tried 3 lots of drivers with that and no success. I begin to wonder if the card did actually get damaged when my PC was fried by a thunderstorm, after all ...

From working with Telephony servers there is a link between thunderstorms and degradation of equipment. Even if the items survive the storm a lot of them will have a shorter working life.

GoreBag

11-07-2005, 19:25

A second quick game: I picked the good old US and played on warlord (third difficulty level, just under the fair 'Noble'). I had a comfortable lead on my neighbours throughout the game, I never got involved in a single war. I lost when caesar finished his space ship 2 turns before me (hey I was exploring the game and didn't really concentrate on winning until the end). It seemed a lot easier then Civ3 on a comparable level though, so what if i didn't win, i didn't feel like I got a real challenge either.
A quick game can be finished in an afternoon -, I rather like this. I assume epic is needed if you want to be a serious warmonger though.

You should have nuked his posterior.

Craterus

11-09-2005, 20:46

Guess what I just got? Having never asked nor taken an interest in this game...

Very strange. Well, I assume it'll be better than the half-game that I am able to have with BI.

screwtype

11-10-2005, 00:50

Guess what I just got? Having never asked nor taken an interest in this game...

Very strange. Well, I assume it'll be better than the half-game that I am able to have with BI.

You may well assume wrong ~;) A lot of people are having technical problems with the game.

And I use the word "game" advisedly. The Civ paradigm is more like an exercise in masochism than a real game. After a week of playing it, I'm scratching my head wondering whatever could have possessed me to buy another title in this series after the frustrations of Civ3.

I guess there is the challenge in just trying to beat the darned thing. But it must have about the most tedious gameplay ever. It's just build, build, build, build and build, trying to get a bit of functionality into your cities. There's bugger all action, and almost nothing in the way of crises or challenges to keep you interested or on your toes. Just a slow, relentless grind toward dominance - or, more commonly, defeat. I honestly can't understand why it's so popular. Imperialsim II is a much better game design, and yet it's almost unknown.

I think the original Civ just came along at the right time, and so a fan base developed, and it went from there. And then, there are so few games released for strategy gamers these days...

Papewaio

11-10-2005, 02:18

Has anyone played MP online yet?

Rosacrux redux

11-10-2005, 09:30

Lovely game, dunno why so many people seem to hate it. I'll need to pump up my RAM to 1 GB to be able to play at an acceptable speed with a Huge map (right now I am confined to Large with my 512 MB).

This is an extremely moddable game, though, but the community will have to take some time to familiarize with the XML and - especially - Python, until we get some high-quality mods to pester our lives even more (like the original game wasn't enough...).

For the time being, I've modde the Epic game setting, to allow for really epic games - research at 300%, while buildings were kept at 150% and units at 130. I altered the turns accordingly and now, with the really slow research, it makes for a really epic game and you can actually engage in some serious warfare with your units before they get obsolete.

econ21

11-10-2005, 10:27

I'm enjoying Civ4 - it's as addictive as Civ2, but more fun. I can't compare it to Civ3 fairly, as I very much disliked that incarnation.

Civ4 retains the same core appeal as Civ2 - nursing your empire to greatness (primarily by research and building in my case) with lots of historical flavour (wonders, units etc). Playing on epic+huge, it feels very similar to how I remember my Civ2 games.

One strength of the Civ series - good AI - also seems to be continued; it's pretty strong compared to most strategy games (including TW, cough). I was amazed when the Japanese declared war on me. It was hopeless for them, as they were my very close neighbours confined to tundra. But war was still excusable - I was culture bombing them further into the Antartic and had only warriors, it was their last and best chance. They attacked from both land and from sea with higher tech units than I had (swordsmen). It was only when I finally killed them that I realised what they had done - simultaneously pillaged my only two sources of copper (needed for good units). Good grief, I don't think I could have come up with a tactic as clever as that!

But Civ4 adds to Civ experience in a number of ways.

The combat is more fun - the promotions and the rock-scissors-paste aspect make it feel more involving and strategic. I enjoyed coordinating my invasion of Japan - far more than the tedious "move dozens of units one square" I remember from Civ3 and Civ2. I had fewer units (often stacked), cared about them more and used them for more specialised functions. The better graphics really help out here.

The great leaders and religion are excellent additions to the flavour. Having a great leader spawned is very rewarding (they are just so cute and productive) and I love hearing the music when judaism spreads to another town.

The diplomacy is rather nice - some leaders tend to hate you for a reason (e.g. you're squeezing their territory) but the others are interested in making mutually beneficial deals - I even feel like giving them tech to make like me more.

I agree with Screwtype that Civ falls short of Imperialism II in streamlining micromanagement and providing thrills. But for me its still a fun game in its own way.

Kekvit Irae

11-10-2005, 10:55

I got it, and right off the bat I started to hate it. The game running slowly for me (unit orders are delayed by half a second or so) is my main gripe. I would much rather play Civ3 or Civ2: Test of Time than this. Ah well, maybe a patch will help my woes.

The_Doctor

11-10-2005, 11:24

I have the same problem. How much RAM do you have?

I have not really played it much, I want to play on the Earth map, but it takes 30mins to load and then it is too slow to play it. I am going to buy some RAM at the weekend. 256Mb up to 1GB, that should solve the problem.

Kekvit Irae

11-10-2005, 16:46

I have a full gig of DDR SDRAM
My processor is AMD Athlon XP 2500 running at 1.47 GHz
Video card is an nVidia Geforce FX 5600 Ultra 128mb using 77.72 drivers

The_Doctor

11-10-2005, 19:03

d'oh.

Other than the processor it is alround better than my PC.

Maybe the patch will fix it.

The_Doctor

11-10-2005, 21:00

A quick RAM question.

I have this type of motherboard:
http://www.ecs.com.tw/ECSWeb/Products/ProductsDetail.aspx?MenuID=24&LanID=8&DetailID=321&DetailName=Specification

Is this the type of RAM that will work in it:
http://www.pcworld.co.uk/martprd/store/pcw_page.jsp?BV_SessionID=@@@@1498215267.1131651510@@@@&BV_EngineID=ccejaddgeimejfkcflgceggdhhmdgmh.0&microsite_id=Component_Shop&page=Product&sku=158703&fm=0&sm=0&tm=undefined

512MB
DDR DIMM
PC2100

screwtype

11-11-2005, 00:01

Martinus, I've seen lots of folks with problems posting their tech specs at CivFanatics, and the overall impression is that these lag problems seem to occur almost at random, regardless of spec. There are people with very high end systems who are getting severe lag, others with systems which are actually below the recommended specs who have no problems. You just can't tell whether your system will be one of those affected by looking at your machine's spec.

I seem to be one of the lucky ones, the game runs fine for me unless I enable anti-aliasing, in which case it starts getting lag and other graphical glitches. I have an Athlon 64 3000+, 1 Gig RAM, 9800 Pro. But there are other folks who have the latest AMD CPU and video card and multi-gigs of RAM who can't run the game at an acceptable speed.

Extra RAM will probably improve the performance to a degree but don't assume it will fix the problem. BTW, some people say they've improved performance by defragging, turning off their antivirus program and all other background tasks, and increasing the size of their HD swap file to a couple of Gigs. But again there are no guarantees. Other than that you'll probably have to wait and hope for the patch.

Papewaio

11-11-2005, 00:35

Once you get past the amount of RAM needed to run an application it rarely improves the speed of a game.

The exceptions are where there is a memory leak... in which case the extra RAM acts as a bucket... the bigger the bucket the more time you have before it overflows and you get problems.

The other side is the amount of other applications that you can have running on your PC at the same time.

RAM is like deskspace... the bigger the desk the more books you can have out and the longer the time you have until you run out of space to use.

Kekvit Irae

11-11-2005, 02:34

frogbeastegg

11-11-2005, 11:16

The_Doctor

11-11-2005, 20:55

I upgraded my PC to 1GB and now it runs a lot better. For example, the Medieval scenario took me half an hour to load and now it only takes a minute or two.~:cheers:

Another strange thing; the lighthouse building. Only one of my cities could build it in my last game, though I had two others with a good amount of coastal tiles in their workable range. What's going on? It's one of those Very Important Improvements. The manual blurb on them is not helpful; it only lists effects, cost and tech requirement, nothing like how close to the coast you have to be to build them.

The city has to be on the coast.

screwtype

11-11-2005, 21:53

I'm also one of those lucky amphibians for whom the game runs very well, now my initial problems have been solved. Although sound still seems too quiet sometimes, and there are great long stretches without any music at all.

Yes, I find the game a tad quiet too.

Anyone else finding the random map generator to be a bit ... erm ... rubbish? Or am I supremely unlucky? I get a rubbish start in every map I've tried - deserts, jungles, tundra, ice, mountains. As I explore I continue to reveal bad terrain.

There has been quite a bit of controversy over the map generator at CivFanatics. I've complained about it myself. The maps seem smaller and pokier than they did in the previous game, even on huge map size. I never played the huge map with Civ3, it would take forever to finish a game. On Civ4, it's the only setting I use.

And yes, you can have a bad run with starting positions. I had a whole bunch of starts in the middle of [snip] jungles, which totally cripples your chances. Jungle makes your townsfolk sick and takes time to clear, but you can't even start clearing it until you get iron working, which is quite a way into the tech tree. IMO there shouldn't be so much jungle on the temperate setting.

If I get a bad starting position now, I immediately dump the game and start a new one. Unfortunately, the game does not remember your previous game settings and you have to reset them all before trying again, but it beats trying to win from jungle. It took me six or seven goes to get a good starting pos last time.

Another strange thing; the lighthouse building. Only one of my cities could build it in my last game, though I had two others with a good amount of coastal tiles in their workable range. What's going on?

Your city has to be adjacent to a coastal tile, not merely have one "within its workable range". It was the same in Civ3 too BTW. So you have to build your city either adjacent to the sea or two tiles away from it, otherwise you end up with a bunch of sea tiles you can't improve.

I agree it's a bit limiting. I think at the very least you should be able to build a "coastal" city next to river tiles. Maybe that could be modded in.

I've seen a lot of people complaining about ships in this game. I have to agree - they are too slow, and it takes too long to get anything capable of leaving the coast lines. If I can find out how I might mod those two aspects.

Not sure if I agree with this. It was much the same in the earlier game, the only real difference is that now galleys have an MP of two instead of three. But there is an "auto-explore" function which is quite useful. Build a couple of galleys early and put them on auto-explore, they will map your continent out in no time.

I might also mod myself a 'useful' epic mode, one with slower research than the normal game mode, but faster unit production and building production the same. Epic should mean a long game with slower progression along the tech tree, not slower everything to the point of having less to do, IMO.

These are similar to the changes I'm considering myself. Unit production really is cripplingly slow (much like Civ3) and epic mode does not seem terribly epic, especially in the later stages. However, the buzz for me ATM is trying to beat the game on standard settings ~;)

On the whole, though, I do like the game, more than civ3. The civics system is great, and I like the unit promotions. I am beginning to understand the religion system now too, and I like the way it is going.

Yeah, it ain't bad. But its moddability is probably its great redeeming feature. I'm sure we're going to see a lot of good mods for it over time ~:)

Kekvit Irae

11-12-2005, 07:34

Yes, unit and building production is slow as heck. I loved CivIII, but CivIV seems like a downgrade instead of an upgrade

frogbeastegg

11-12-2005, 11:14

There has been quite a bit of controversy over the map generator at CivFanatics.
Really? I've been reading a bit over there and a bit on Apolyton, but there is so much traffic and I only have a bit of time, so I'm mostly speed reading the strategy forums to see what others think. Good; if people are grumbling en masse then Firaxis will see, and they might do something.

So far I'm not troubled by the size of the map, but then I've only played two learning games on lower difficulties, default map size and settings, with 4AIs a piece. When I get all 18 civs on the map I expect it will be crowded ... so I may not even bother. I have heard plenty about all civs and the largest map making for a slow lagfest of a game. I expect my PC has the umph to handle that, since the game is running almost perfectly, but the possibility of finding my game unplayable after a few hours puts me off trying.

I had a few bad starts in the older games, but never quite like this. I feel like I have the 'jungle' setting on, or the 'ice age' one, or both at once. From my next game on I think I may join you in dumping maps, unless I desire to play a game with a poor starting position.

Your city has to be adjacent to a coastal tile, not merely have one "within its workable range".
Thought it would be something like that. Pity; my city is about half coastal, but not quite on the coast thanks to a mass of jungle and mountains. It's an odd location. I was lucky to even squeeze it in in a location where it would do more than cost me money. My third city, and the last one to go in a location I didn't have to spend ages hacking jungle before the site became useable. Oh well, there goes my hope of having it work the coast - not enough food to support it, unless I pull workers off my very productive mines. That would be pointless, detrimental, even.

Not sure if I agree with this. It was much the same in the earlier game, the only real difference is that now galleys have an MP of two instead of three. But there is an "auto-explore" function which is quite useful. Build a couple of galleys early and put them on auto-explore, they will map your continent out in no time.
I haven't played civ3 in years; my main memories of it are covering the world in cities, roads and railways, and hating the music in the modern eras.

It's not my continent I want to map via sea; I usually have it done by land units before I even consider building a navy. It's other continents and islands I want to map by sea, to find the civs that are not on my own continent and to look at possibly expanding to a new land mass. Which I can't do until optics gives me caravels. So I ignore the sea until I get the techs needed for that.

One game in this series, I suspect it was civ3, had three different types of ocean. Coast, sea, ocean, something like that. Each advance let your units go out one type further, so that your ships capabilities echoed the historical possibilities reasonably well for such an abstracted game. It's a pity they didn't keep that.

Yeah, it ain't bad. But its moddability is probably its great redeeming feature. I'm sure we're going to see a lot of good mods for it over time ~:)
Yes, that is the best thing. If you don't like it you can change it, and that will soon apply to everything in the game. :cough: Though I doubt I will be able to do more than simple text editing type changes, due to being a modding n00b.

Anyone finding definite preferences for leaders yet? I find Qin Shi Huang to be mine thus far. Industrious and commercial; wonders and cash in large quantities. Louis sounds like another I might like; industrious and creative.

Aggressive, spiritual, expansive, organised - they don't feel much use to me. They could be nice, but I wouldn't like to pass up something which feels better to play as those traits. Depends on your playstyle, I suppose, but it seems to me that those bonuses are either not used very often, can be imitated by a wonder or civic, or don't really seem to be needed. Hehe, but then I am a builder/researcher frog.

ah_dut

11-12-2005, 16:06

Do you people think it's worth forking out £35 or thereabouts or is there a better game to get at the moment (legally bearing in mind I'm under 15 and have no credit card etc)

Kekvit Irae

11-12-2005, 19:40

Do you people think it's worth forking out £35 or thereabouts or is there a better game to get at the moment (legally bearing in mind I'm under 15 and have no credit card etc)

Honestly? Buy CivIII Gold and the Conquerers expansion. It is much better, in my opinion. It's fun playing a Regicide game in the Sengoku era of Japan

econ21

11-12-2005, 19:49

Ah_dut, it depends whether you like Civ-type games (ie slow turnbased, with an emphasis on building rather just total war). If you do, I think it is very nice addition to the genre. Lots of fun features and keeps the same tried n tested turnbased strategy game play. It's a pretty substantial game (the manual is 200 pages, pretty much all solid content), so it is worth a full price tag (I saw it in ASDA today for £29.99). So far, I've got to 1750 or so in an epic huge game on noble (the neutral difficulty setting), and it's been fun - building wonders, developing cities, winning the tech race, getting stabbed in the back and fighting wars of vengenance etc.

Whether there is a better game out right now, I don't know. BI is better, but other than that nothing recent has grabbed my eye (Oblivion is the next one on my radar).

Froggy, I'm glad you can hear the opening music - I really took a liking to it when I found out it was the Lord's prayer in Swahili (knowing the meaning behind it gives it more gravitas).

I agree with your assessment of traits - in terms of leaders, I'd recommend Elizabeth. I nearly always play English as I find it easier to remember my towns. But she has two nice traits - financial hauls in the cash (good for a tech lead) and philosophical give you more great leaders which are just fun. The redcoat is a nice and flavoursome unit - it kicks in about the time I might want to fight (being a turtler by nature), although even on epic it was very quickly made obsolete by infantry.

Kekvit Irae

11-12-2005, 20:04

I personally prefer Frederick for the +100% GL Birth Rate and Panzers, or Catherine for the Cossacks. I havent yet tried the Fast Workers

doc_bean

11-12-2005, 20:41

Anyone finding definite preferences for leaders yet? I find Qin Shi Huang to be mine thus far. Industrious and commercial; wonders and cash in large quantities. Louis sounds like another I might like; industrious and creative.

Aggressive, spiritual, expansive, organised - they don't feel much use to me. They could be nice, but I wouldn't like to pass up something which feels better to play as those traits. Depends on your playstyle, I suppose, but it seems to me that those bonuses are either not used very often, can be imitated by a wonder or civic, or don't really seem to be needed. Hehe, but then I am a builder/researcher frog.

All traits have their benefits, you just have to use them right :bow:

I finished my first game on normal game speed (warlord, lakes map, domination) the game became very unstable towards the end, I had to replay 1894 at least 3 times before I got past that turn properly. I hope the patch will fix things...

screwtype

11-12-2005, 23:34

Do you people think it's worth forking out £35 or thereabouts or is there a better game to get at the moment (legally bearing in mind I'm under 15 and have no credit card etc)

Remember you're taking a risk with your money given that lots of folks are having problems running it. If you really want to buy it, try and buy it from a store that has a good refund policy so you can get your money back if it doesn't work.

But Kek's advice ain't bad. If you haven't played a Civ game before, get a copy of Civ3 with the Conquests expansion. You should be able to pick them up for a song. It will give you a feel for the Civ paradigm and whether you like it or not.

Civ4 has better graphics, but in many ways it's not much different from its predecessor. And there are some features of Civ3 that are actually better - the human advisors for example.

The one thing I would do before playing Conquests is go into the game editor and wind corruption back to about 50%. At the default 100% setting, it's just an exercise in frustration.

screwtype

11-13-2005, 00:15

Really? I've been reading a bit over there and a bit on Apolyton, but there is so much traffic and I only have a bit of time, so I'm mostly speed reading the strategy forums to see what others think. Good; if people are grumbling en masse then Firaxis will see, and they might do something.

Actually, huge map size ain't so bad. I'm just getting into a huge map campaign and in retrospect the continent I'm on really is big - there's enough room for forty or more cities on it.

My complaint is more along the lines of the lack of variety of the maps. I selected "Continents" for this game but got only two mega-huge continents, which is what I got the previous game. It's all but a pangaea map. When I select continents I expect, you know, three or four of them at least. But there's no obvious way to get a map with several large land masses that I can see.

So far I'm not troubled by the size of the map, but then I've only played two learning games on lower difficulties, default map size and settings, with 4AIs a piece. When I get all 18 civs on the map I expect it will be crowded

Personally I don't like games with lots of Civs. I usually take the default number for a map size, or fewer. I like to have room to expand before encountering opposition.

I had a few bad starts in the older games, but never quite like this. I feel like I have the 'jungle' setting on, or the 'ice age' one, or both at once. From my next game on I think I may join you in dumping maps, unless I desire to play a game with a poor starting position.

I'm told there is an option called "Tilted Axis" in the Custom screen that gives you more varied starts. It's under the "maps" option apparently. I must have missed it. But I haven't tried it yet, so can't verify that it's better.

my city is about half coastal, but not quite on the coast thanks to a mass of jungle and mountains...there goes my hope of having it work the coast - not enough food to support it

Yeah, I made the same mistake in the first campaign I played. Gotta watch that one ~;)

It's not my continent I want to map via sea..It's other continents

You often had to wait quite a while in Civ3 too.

civ3, had three different types of ocean. Coast, sea, ocean, something like that.

Yeah, Civ3 had that, but it was still a gamble using your galleys to cross sea tiles, because they had about a 50:50 chance of sinking. You had to hope that another land mass was only a few tiles away.

Perhaps the big change in Civ4 in that regard is that you can no longer enter non-coastal hexes with your galleys at all. So you can't even try to explore and take the risk of losing your ship.

I doubt I will be able to do more than simple text editing type changes, due to being a modding n00b.

I'm sure there will be plenty of modding guides eventually posted at CivFanatics.

Anyone finding definite preferences for leaders yet? I find Qin Shi Huang to be mine thus far. Industrious and commercial; wonders and cash in large quantities. Louis sounds like another I might like; industrious and creative.

I always go for a religious leader with the mystical trait, because then you can found Hinduism (the AI always seems to go for Buddhism) and get the early advantage of temples and extra smileys. And then you can found Organized Religion and get another smiley and a 25% building bonus in your cities. If you start out in a game where you don't have contact with another Civ and don't have your own religion, you will soon see what you're missing IMO.

But apart from that, I think all the Civs have their strengths.

ah_dut

11-13-2005, 00:51

I've got Civ III and the expansion and quite liked it...I just got really stressed with a) corruption and b) ridiculous military stuff like axeman defeating rifleman

econ21

11-13-2005, 00:55

Just finished my first Civ4 game - space race victory in 1880 on noble difficulty in a huge continental world with 8 civs and epic speed. It played ok on my computer, although towards the end, there were some crashes that rebooted my computer.

Like Screwtype said, I found the world a bit boring - three mega continents, which we all peacefully carved big sections from. Virtually no land seemed "up for grabs" by the time we could travel the oceans. The two fun parts for me were my two wars.

One occurred early when my near neighbours, the Japanese, decided to attack my warrior-only land with axemen (yikes) .

The other happened when four of us squabbled over the one free bit of territory we found in the middle ages (a barbarian town). It was the furthest possible from my land and I saw two massive Roman armies take the barb town and march away. Cheekily, I tried to settle there, prompting the Romans to do an about turn and used their massed armies to squash me my few upgraded veterans of the war with Japan. Soon after I got redcoats and seized the main Roman homelands in a very uneven war of against nothing better than musketmen.

After that, the game got a little dull - no one tried to make any serious moves. I remember finding the last few centures of Civ2 tedious as well - once you get past a tipping point, you are so strong anyway the AI is unlikely to stop you.

I guess the next step is to raise the difficulty level, but I may try a different map first (I liked being able to bag most of the wonders). Maybe large rather than huge to induce more conflict. I might try terra, although my impression from surfing is that one is most prone to crash your computer for some reason.

Kekvit Irae

11-13-2005, 05:25

I've got Civ III and the expansion and quite liked it...I just got really stressed with a) corruption and b) ridiculous military stuff like axeman defeating rifleman

Corruption is a constent problem in CivIII. My suggestion is... for large empires, Communism is the key to controlling your corruption. Combine that with Police Stations and such, and you wont have a problem. Democracy is for small empires, which works better than Communism. A shame it isnt like CivII, where Democracy completely eliminates corruption

screwtype

11-13-2005, 08:37

A shame it isnt like CivII, where Democracy completely eliminates corruption

Now that's what I call an unrealistic game mechanic! :laugh4:

screwtype

11-13-2005, 10:52

"Democracies are Buerocracies which, by nature, handle and faciliate corruption quite well."

Ya reckon???

doc_bean

11-13-2005, 12:55

I've got Civ III and the expansion and quite liked it...I just got really stressed with a) corruption and b) ridiculous military stuff like axeman defeating rifleman

CivIV really isn't that much different from CivIII, so I would hesitate to pay full price (as I did) if you already have that. It is however, imho, a better game than CivIII, so i don't regret buying it.
Now about:
a) corruption has been replaced by other factors like health and unhappiness, infaltion, civic upkeep and a cost per city in order to keep you from spawning cities like cray. pretty much all of these can be countered by adopting the right civics, chosing a leader with the right traits or building some wonders. Iy's still a bit of a hassle to manage a large empire though.
b) The combat system has been completely revised as you probably know. It makes victories a lot more predictable. That said, a rifleman still blew up my modern armour in my last game (no city defense bonusses), it seems like those high powered units don't really live up to their stats to me (winning is one thing, how strong your unit is after the battle is quite another).

After that, the game got a little dull - no one tried to make any serious moves. I remember finding the last few centures of Civ2 tedious as well - once you get past a tipping point, you are so strong anyway the AI is unlikely to stop you.

The AI does seem less aggressive than it was in civIII, barbarians seem to your main concern in the early turns, and in the later turns civs will rarely attack unless you're culture-absorbing them.

My complaint is more along the lines of the lack of variety of the maps. I selected "Continents" for this game but got only two mega-huge continents, which is what I got the previous game. It's all but a pangaea map. When I select continents I expect, you know, three or four of them at least. But there's no obvious way to get a map with several large land masses that I can see.

That's how I remember CivII to be too, I even got a Pangaea map once when I had selected continents (there was a small landbridge). Other times there were 2 huge continents and a couple of islands, the civs on those islands didn't stand a chance to begin with, I think that's what they were trying to address in CivIV.

ShadesWolf

11-13-2005, 14:45

This is an expensive game.

I used to have a ATI Radeon card and purchase the game on its day of release. I then spent until yesterday trying to get hte game to work.

I followed all the things the website said and it just wouldnt work. So yesterday, I had had enought so I went out and got a new card. Only a cheap one £75.

Came home and installed the card and now the game works perfectly. So I look forward to many happy months of gameplay.

First impressions, I have a lot to learn, I have been away from CIV for a long time.

ah_dut

11-14-2005, 17:39

I'll see if I can get it. Impressions seem to be that it's good but not worth full price, thanks

econ21

11-16-2005, 14:03

The AI does seem less aggressive than it was in civIII, barbarians seem to your main concern in the early turns, and in the later turns civs will rarely attack unless you're culture-absorbing them.

Just after I was bemoaning the passive AI, I've had a little more experience with the game - moving on to Prince after the "neutral" difficulty setting of Noble. I think the reason I had peace in some of my games is because I was so dominant, war would have been suicide. Raising the difficulty level just a notch can weaken you sufficiently that the sharks may want to feed.

I've had great fun trying to hold off 2 AI civs in the late ancient/medieval period - had to reload a couple of times to cope with the massed horse archers Montezuma sent my way (pillaging all my infrastructure). 3 other AI civs also joined in on occasion, despite not sharing a border. Thankfully, they do agree to peace when you have held them off (unlike TW), although they did manage to destroy my tech lead by diverting resources.

I must say I am impressed with the AI. I always admired Civ2 for having a relatively competitive and aggressive AI, and Civ4 continues this. It seems a much harder game than Civ2 to win - I could beat that on Deity; I think even Monarch will be a challenge for me in Civ4.

frogbeastegg

11-23-2005, 11:55

Patch is out, and suspended so autoupdate doesn't find it. Some vague mumblings about a possible issue, or something.

I made the first incarnation of the FrogMod, and it turned out quite well, aside from my not getting build times for structures quite right for the tech descovery rate, meaning I got stuck with nothing to build but units and none of the hammers->whatever techs available for a long time. Tweak that and that should be good. I made units build at 67% of the normal speed, like in a fast game, techs discover at 150% of the speed like in an epic game (and buildings will go to match this), and all the rest is as per the normal speed. Much better, IMO.

I might move catapults so they are available sooner, as in my test game I found there was a very, very long stretch of the game where everyone had large armies but could do hardly anything with them due to a lack of artillery support. I have a few other ideas too, if I can find out how to do them. Er, and get the time to do them.

frogbeastegg

11-24-2005, 21:11

The patch is available again.

Official 1.09 Patch for Civilization IV

Changes:
- increased cost of Apollo Program...
- increased SS parts cost...
- Animal Husbandry reveals Horses
- tweaked Rifling, Chemistry, Steel, and Railroad tech costs...
- increased late-game tech costs...
- can now add two specialists in size 1 city with Mercantilism...
- final score is now modified by difficulty level...
- Speed up load times
- Global performance enhancements

Added:

- Include WB map size in the description field
- Save login name
- Added password encryption
- Added regenerate Map Button to World builder Map Mode...
- checkbox for using low resolution textures
- more logging for init failure
- minspec / video memory checking
- Added ability to change to and from fullscreen while in-game
- holding during startup will clean out the cache
- improved bink playback, added ini options

Fixes:

- ATI issue Failed to Init Renderer Fixed
- Multiplayer Lobby list jump problem and lobby crash fixed
- fixed war weariness calculation bug...
- units maintain their name when upgraded
- fixed Gold-for-Gold diplo exploit...
- fixed no research choice overflow exploit...
- Fix for voice initialization crash
- Fix addressing takeover AI and retirement OOS.
- Fixed issue with diplomacy text being always used in its first form in the translator.
- Popups, screens, and diplomacy properly cleared when exiting from main menu.
- Games protected by admin passwords (only) cannot be loaded if the version is different from the one that created the save
- Fixed bug where player could not offer any deal to other human in PBEM/Hotseat
- Sorting by date on domestic advisor now works.
- fixed bug where settlers could not move if the strategy layer was selected
- fixed Ironworks...
- fixed AI units not obeying open borders rules on declaration of war...
- fixed bug that prevent placing of units in world-builder
- fixed bug that prevented gifting of units to a human player
- stack attack infinite loop fixed
- Civic screen update fix (wasn’t showing the right maintenance and anarchy values)
- ctrl-g crash fix, optimized city bar art
- fixed right-click menu crash
- Intro movie crashing problems

UglyandHasty

11-24-2005, 21:30

If anyone is interested in a PBEM game, me , Elmo and another ugli are starting a couple....

http://ugli.org/

only serious player though, we play one turn a day.

Slyspy

11-28-2005, 01:06

Tried the demo. Found the same game which I had played to death previously (Civ2, Civ3, CtP etc). Got bored before the time limit ran out. Uninstalled the demo.

screwtype

11-29-2005, 12:45

Tried the demo. Found the same game which I had played to death previously (Civ2, Civ3, CtP etc). Got bored before the time limit ran out. Uninstalled the demo.

Yeah, it's the same game with a slick new graphics engine, dumbed down gameplay, and a lot less personality and charm. I've consigned it to the shelf already.

frogbeastegg

12-09-2005, 12:45

Question: Will I still be able to play MP with someonme who does not have the FrogMod if I have it installed in the custom assets folder? We're playing with a direct IP connection, and he is the host, if that is any help.

So far we've played without the FrogMod on my machine; I removed it when I patched the game. Now I want to remake it, and perhaps add to it a bit. But I still want to play MP.

Monarch

12-11-2005, 13:14

I am getting Civ IV for Christmas to play on my new pc, however I probably wont play it much at the start, since RTW campaign is probably what il be playing on the most. Still I've lurked a few Civ forums and since I'll be playing RTW at the same time Il end up being a warmonger I suppose, who is the best leader to be if you plan to have lots of conflict?

doc_bean

12-11-2005, 14:24

Caesar probably, although tastes differ.

Monarch

12-11-2005, 16:54

Ah okay figures I suppose. I was just wondering how the American units look in like BC times, I mean what are they Native Americans or something?

econ21

12-12-2005, 11:23

All units are generic in appearance, except for the one unique unit for each country. IIRC, the US get the navy SEAL - a kind of beefed up marine.

Contrary to some opinions in this thread, I am still having a blast with Civ4 and highly recommend it. It is just a much more competitive single player experience than the Total War games - the AI really bites at my heels even at Prince level and there are times when I think I am done for (curiously, these are often when there are several stacks of Romans heading my way).

In terms of war fighting, Romans can steamroller other factions in the ancient period (their unique unit is Praetorians). My faction of preference is the English and although I try to play peacefully, their redcoat unit is extremely powerful in the gunpowder period (I am currently fending off an attack by French grenadiers and it is like Waterloo all over again).

kiwitt

12-12-2005, 23:15

I am a longtime Civ player. Finally got it. The graphics look a bit like RTW.

Only being playing for a few minutes. Will report more later.

It has been recommended to turn AA on in the Video Card driver and not in the game as this increases the RAM used. Will give that a try.

NOTE: Patch v1.09 is out now.

jeffreyLebowski

12-14-2005, 17:11

i've been playing civ 4 for a couple days now. i really like the new engine and interface, and so far i've been lucky enough to not have any technical issues.

the only thing i don't quite get is how slow your game progress is compared to time. i mean, i usually dont get a half decent couple of cities going until well past BC. it takes so long to build anything that sometimes you just have to click turns after turn without doing anything. it seems like any wars that get fought will always be in the medieval to modern age. didn't people fight in ancient times? or am i just playing the game incorrectly?

kiwitt

12-14-2005, 21:59

Actually it is pretty true to history. Wars between civiliations, were certainly rarer in the past as there was more room for them to expand and resources were plentiful. In later centuries, nations were banging into each other more often and resources were less plentiful

You may want to set your timescale to quick, instead of normal or epic.

Efrem

12-15-2005, 08:51

What do you do if you want to slow down scientific advancement but not unit or building advancment? At least not as much.

frogbeastegg

12-15-2005, 19:06

So no one has an answer for my MP question? ~:mecry:

I'm still enjoying the game, as little as I get to play it. Even if it is something of a hell for a dyslexic frog; it's a number game, like the rest of the series and AC before it.

In my frogmod I slowed research by editing the game mode files, and specifically epic mode. This is the easiest way. There are others, but I don’t know them. Go to your civ 4 directory, assets, XML, gameinfo, then find the file called GameSpeedInfo. Copy it to my documents/civ4/customassets/XML/gameinfo. This is important - it means your mod will load automatically each time, but the original files are still there and untouched. Any files not modded will automatically come from the vanilla game ones. Simple.

Open your copied version with wordpad (or similar). It's divided up into three sections, headed 'epic' 'normal' and 'quick'. Epic is at the top. You are looking for this line: <iResearchPercent>150</iResearchPercent> Adjust that number to suit. 100 is the rate for normal mode, 150 for epic.

Note: One problem I had was that my research was slower, but I could still build buildings at the same rate. So I frequently ran out of things to build and had to keep on pumping out units I didn't want, which very badly trashed my economy. I hadn’t researched any of the hammers->other resource techs either. So put building speed up to match, or very close. Units are a different matter entirely; I made them build faster.

Don't ask me about adjusting the number of years which pass per turn - I don't know much about it. Or how to alter how many turns the game lasts. This is why I suggest creating your own version based on the original epic template.

If anyone's interested, for the frogmod I had this:

<Type>GAMESPEED_EPIC</Type>
<Description>TXT_KEY_GAMESPEED_EPIC</Description>
<Help>TXT_KEY_GAMESPEED_EPIC_HELP</Help>
<iGrowthPercent>100</iGrowthPercent>
<iTrainPercent>67</iTrainPercent>
<iConstructPercent>150</iConstructPercent>
<iCreatePercent>100</iCreatePercent>
<iResearchPercent>150</iResearchPercent>
<iBuildPercent>100</iBuildPercent>
<iImprovementPercent>100</iImprovementPercent>
<iGreatPeoplePercent>100</iGreatPeoplePercent>
<iCulturePercent>100</iCulturePercent>
<iAnarchyPercent>150</iAnarchyPercent>
<iBarbPercent>120</iBarbPercent>
<iFeatureProductionPercent>100</iFeatureProductionPercent>
<iUnitDiscoverPercent>100</iUnitDiscoverPercent>
<iUnitHurryPercent>100</iUnitHurryPercent>
<iUnitTradePercent>100</iUnitTradePercent>
<iUnitGreatWorkPercent>100</iUnitGreatWorkPercent>
<iGoldenAgePercent>125</iGoldenAgePercent>
<iHurryPercent>100</iHurryPercent>
<iHurryConscriptAngerPercent>100</iHurryConscriptAngerPercent>
<iInflationPercent>27</iInflationPercent>
<iInflationOffset>-100</iInflationOffset>
<GameTurnInfos>
<GameTurnInfo>
<iYearIncrement>40</iYearIncrement>
<iTurnsPerIncrement>50</iTurnsPerIncrement>
</GameTurnInfo>
<GameTurnInfo>
<iYearIncrement>25</iYearIncrement>
<iTurnsPerIncrement>40</iTurnsPerIncrement>
</GameTurnInfo>
<GameTurnInfo>
<iYearIncrement>20</iYearIncrement>
<iTurnsPerIncrement>70</iTurnsPerIncrement>
</GameTurnInfo>
<GameTurnInfo>
<iYearIncrement>10</iYearIncrement>
<iTurnsPerIncrement>60</iTurnsPerIncrement>
</GameTurnInfo>
<GameTurnInfo>
<iYearIncrement>5</iYearIncrement>
<iTurnsPerIncrement>130</iTurnsPerIncrement>
</GameTurnInfo>
<GameTurnInfo>
<iYearIncrement>2</iYearIncrement>
<iTurnsPerIncrement>100</iTurnsPerIncrement>
</GameTurnInfo>
<GameTurnInfo>
<iYearIncrement>1</iYearIncrement>
<iTurnsPerIncrement>200</iTurnsPerIncrement>
</GameTurnInfo>
</GameTurnInfos>
This I found to be very nice; small changes which keep the overall feel, but malke the latter part of the game tolerable.

BDC

12-15-2005, 21:11

Anyone have any hints on how to do well? Such as how to focus on expansion or what to research...

econ21

12-19-2005, 12:48

I've played a few games on epic/huge/terra. On the "fair" difficulty level, "Noble", I find it a little easy. But on "Prince", I find the AI competes nicely.

I tend to play a building game - to me Civ's strength is not it's combat - but I suspect that on higher difficulty levels, you will only survive by conquering rivals. Their cheat bonuses are too much.

For the early game, I do the "worker chop" trick. Build a worker first while researching bronze working. Then grow a settler and a warrior, speeding up the process by chopping down forests. It gives you an early edge over the AI.

Research priority for me is Judaism. If I am lucky, I can found other religions too. If they catch on - helped by missionaries - it really eases foreign relations and, with some great prophets to found holy cities, can make a stack of money.

I also pick up the Oracle for the free tech, then head for alphabet to trade and backfill my techs. I don't trade alphabet though, to keep a monopoly on tech trading for as long as possible.

After that, I research for wonders I want - e.g. Statue of Liberty - or techs that give a great person to the first one to discover them. On a terra world, getting astronomy early is a biggie.

In terms of expansion, I quickly get about 4 cities in prime sites, then more slowly expand to fill up the space. Often I have a weak military - I am going to have to work on that - and get attacked sooner or later. I then conquer my attackers for extra growth (I tend to play England and find redcoats come just at the right time). I find you need a certain size kingdom to get Oxford type national wonders and be guaranteed to get the oil and other resources necessary to survive the end game.

I go for a space race victory, as the others seem like hard work, and it is the natural end to a building game. (Setting culture to 100% etc just seems gamey). On Prince, I tend to lose my tech edge around the time of Biology. Then it gets tense.

One thing I've learned lately is the advantage of having a "Great Person" factory - stuff one city full of wonders as it will tend to produce nearly all your great people - and the way you can use specialists to determine what kind of great person it produces. (With the Great Library allowing 3 scientists, I've got Great Scientists so regularly, I've got sick of them). I've also learned to micro manage cities - the AI tends to work tiles in ways I don't like (often not prioritising food and population growth enough).

Anyway, I am still finding it a fun game. It can't compare with Total War as a wargame or historical simulation, but gives you a more competitive single player gaming experience.

Del Arroyo

12-21-2005, 17:56

I've also learned to micro manage cities - the AI tends to work tiles in ways I don't like (often not prioritising food and population growth enough).

But aren't you able to adjust the AI Governor's priorities as in previous versions (SMAC, CIV3)??

DA

econ21

12-22-2005, 05:52

But aren't you able to adjust the AI Governor's priorities as in previous versions (SMAC, CIV3)??

DA

Yes, you can do that easily. I don't trust it though - I fear if I chose a priority, I would probably forget about it for the rest of the game unless it led to a noticeable disaster. The thing is the city's priorities are likely to continually change. For example, more population is great until you run into happiness problems and the point at which that occurs frequently changes as you get more resources, better civics etc.

Also, even on a huge terra map, I find I don't have so many cities that periodically reviewing what tiles your cities are working is a problem. (Unlike Civ2, where IIRC you have to continually manage what cities are doing in order to avoid revolts that stop the city producing - in Civ4, there is no such burden.)

BDC

12-23-2005, 21:20

Personally I preferred Civ3 to Civ4. Ah well.

Big_John

12-23-2005, 21:54

somehwere between prince and monarch seems to be ideal.. price is a little too easy, and monarch AIs get a little too much cheat bonus, imo. in addition to the chopping settlers, founding your first city or two on a plains/hills square (if avail.) really boosts one's early-game production and expansion.

on the higher diff levels (emperor and up) building a large army is essential. best way to do it is alternate between buildings and units. foudning a religion and spreading it around really ehlps a lot too.

i always play random and try to tailor my game to whatever civ i draw.

frogbeastegg

12-24-2005, 12:46

New patch is here:

v1.52 is a major upgrade to Civ IV and includes numerous optimizations for memory usage that should help performance on all machines but are tailored to especially improve performance on machines at or near the minimum specification.

Major changes include:

-Shared low-level graphics buffers

-Removed many unused fonts and reduced interface memory usgae

-Paged out units which are not visible

-Reduced terrain data size and overhead

-Reduced route data size

-Created a set of low-res movies for machines without dynamic texture support (this is a separate download)

These changes not only reduced the amount of system memory required, but lowered video memory usage extensively. Also, the rate at which the game consumes memory in the late-game has decreased, which is extremely important.

In addition, a new config file (ini) option called 'MemorySaver' has been added for further memory reduction, at the cost of alt-tabbing support. If you set MemorySaver=1 in the config file, you can lower your system memory usage by 70% of video memory. So if you have a 128MB video card, you can save an additional ~90MB of system memory. MemorySaver defaults to off, and is not officially recommended since it doesn't handle alt-tabbing and other cases of graphics device loss at this time. However, we recognize that some users may want to experiment with it.

Finally, the use of unofficial patches is not recommended and is largely redundant with the memory fixes in this patch. Unofficial patches may slow performance, cause graphical problems or conflict with Firaxis code resulting in crashes or other problems. It also makes it more difficult for us to respond to error reports and debug issues reported by users running unauthorized patches.

Suggestions for optimal performance:

Increase AGP memory size in your BIOS settings to 128 or 256 if necessary.
Go to www.windowsupdate.com and apply updates
Update graphics and sound drivers
Close other background applications
Turn graphics to low and use low-resolution textures in the options screen
Turn off Antialiasing in your display properties
Disable virus protection

-Mustafa Thamer

Civ IV Lead Programmer

Fixes
unit attack move bug
civ naming bug in sp
no longer keep your gold and techs when regenerating a map
missing civic name from popup help
minimap now appears correctly after regenerating map
unit cycling bug
load game freeze bug
movement freeze bug in si-move
unit cycling bug in PitBoss and HotSeat
missing plot list buttons bug with large stacks
pathfinding bug involving defensive terrain and group movement
bug with AI attacking over rivers
can no longer see spies on caravels
group attack bug
group attack bug with gunships
GS lobby ignoring game settings bug
disappearing popup help bug
diplo city trading bug
wonder movie/zoom to building crash
no camera adjustment to city screen bug
user profiles with build queues no longer crash
no more negative gold in diplo screen
fixed gifting bad cities to AI exploit
AI issues with Always War and Always Peace
units not moving into tiles after combat bug (graphical only)
pathfinding reuse fix
fixed pathfinding bug
fixed SHIFT-selecting multiple cities
end score not matching up with timed winner bug
fixed bug allowing selection of disabled techs in tech chooser
fixed Sentry promotion visiblity bug
fixed AI city targeting bug
fixed AI healing bug
AI city attack bug
no more message lag in single-player
fixed bug with gunship stacks attacking cities
random seed bug (causing duplicate world maps...)
unit health bars no longer show up in city screen
two-palaces-from-culture-flipping-capital bug
Foreign Advisor: Gold available for trade does not show up when there cannot be a trade for gold
Diplomacy screen fix for gold popups not appearing properly
Foreign advisor: Resources for active player are shown multiple times if you have more than one instance of a resource to trade.
Fixed weird little bug with Unit Categories page in Civilopedia
diplomacy bug for PBEM/Hotsesat
Removed some cheats from password-protected games that should not have been allowed in the first place
Fix for competitive games: Password-protected saves can no longer be easily stripped of their passwords, and the assets checksum in the save can no longer be modified by external means
Fixed vanishing yield symbols in multiplayer
Fixed some PBEM/Hotseat issues when there is just one human player
River and Wind sounds are now properly classified as ambience. This fixes inconsistent behavior in audio options
Minimized or No Interface no longer reverts to normal after entering, then exiting city view
You can no longer duplicate deals with the AI from the "Active deals" section of the diplomacy screen
Out of memory message problem on machines that don't allocate small textures properly
Assert error for software vertex processing only machines
bug where you could draw strategy lines and signs outside of globe view
"globe view buildings disabled" option now hides buildings in globe view properly

Changes
tech cost rebalancing
improved city attack AI
moved MaxAutosaves to ini file
slower Great People name generation
hide health bars during combat
increased late-game tech costs
waypoints now invisible when city screen is up
ai more willing to trade cities for peace
ai stays at war longer
cottages no longer grow durring anarchy
combat info now shows odds of success
WBS's now contain unit damage
score from land doesn't count until you own land for 20 turns
better invasion AI
Slavery: No Upkeep
Emancipation: Low Upkeep
tweaked AI civic values
filled in missing diplo entries for Frederick
Praetorians: 40->45 hammers
Jaguars: 40->35 hammers
AI turn optimizations
interface game messages are now flushed at end of turn
Environmentalism moved to Medicine
increased industrial era tech costs
Environmentalism is medium upkeep
Free Speech is low upkeep
Forests give 0.5 health
firepower in combat now based on max strength
Lobby sorting improvements
Clearing the table in the MP diplomacy screen resets the "They accept/They do not accept" text
Dawn of man screen closes with ESCAPE just like all the other interface screens
The hall of fame now shows only games that have been played with the currently-loaded mod
When trying to build an item that it not allowed in a city, you will get a production popup asking for a build instead of leaving production empty
Wonder Movies and other popups may appear in PBEM/Hotseat
Incremented save version to 102
simplified city billboard placement. This should fix the weird billboard offsets and scaling.

Additions
Lobby chat and buddy lists from staging rooms
combat odds now shown in combat turn log
ALT-S now allows you to place signs
added "Leave Forest" option for automated workers
added Marathon game speed (longer than Epic)
added NoTechSplash ini setting
More communication about autopatch failures
Domestic advisor remembers which cities you had selected last time screen was up.
Added "no cheating" game option for single-player
In addition to tradeable techs, techs that are not allowed to be traded to you are also shown, provided that you can research them yourself at the moment
Added event and replay messages when a human founds a city. This got broken when we added city renaming
Support for Logitech G15 Gaming Keyboard
When you zoom to a city from the domestic advisor, you return to the domestic advisor after you exit the city screen
Updated Info Screen with changes 'borrowed' from one of the forum modders

BDC

12-24-2005, 14:24

Anyone else notice the striking similarity between the recent community memory fix and the new official patch... ;)

screwtype

12-27-2005, 06:07

Thanks for the heads up Froggie. I d'led the patch and tried the game again on Marathon. It does seem to be faster and smoother, but I still got bored after a few hours. I mean, for the first thousand years or so there is nothing to do in this game but click on the end turn button!

el_slapper

12-27-2005, 12:43

Don't click, press the enter key, it goes MUUUUUUUUUCH faster.

Other than that, the game was rather unplayable before 1.52. Now it rolls - but I fear I'm not very good.

SwordsMaster

12-27-2005, 23:01

Just played my first game by redoing the Russians into the Galactic Empire (couldn't resist) and I like it a lot. The only thing that seems to be a bit over the top is the difficulty of taking cities, specially considering that the AI tends to guard them with 7-8 units... I probably wasted around 2 dozen units to capture one city, specially if the AI has a chance to reinforce it....

Sigurd

12-29-2005, 10:57

I love the music in the game... I can let it run in the main menu and just crank the volume... ahh the bliss!!

econ21

12-31-2005, 11:48

The opening music is bliss, especially when you realise the words are the Lord's Prayer in Swahili and not some meaningless Lion-King rip-off as I first feared.

Swordsmaster, you probably know this but the key to taking a city is artillery-type units. First bombard the city to get the defenses to zero. Then throw 3-4 artillery units at it in suicide attacks to cause collateral damage on a bunch of the defenders. Then hit the town with your best assault troops. Other things being equal, you may lose 2-3 artillery doing so but you should not lose dozens. Choosing your promotions wisely will help (city raider is a no-brainer, but note the trick of upgrading pre-gunpowder units with it, as any newly recruited gunpowder units are ineligible for the promotion; I used to get collateral damage for my artillery but am now wondering about city raider to allow them to actually win).

Sieges can be tricky in the late period, when railways allow easy reinforcement and counter-attacks. That is a good feature, as it makes isolating a city crucial (think Leningrad).

Monarch

01-04-2006, 20:38

I just managed to get Civ IV working (needed the patch) and quickly gave the tutorial game a go.

There are a few questions I have, being new to the world of Civilization.

How many cities are reccomended before you reach AD?

How spread out should the cities be?

How many farms, cottages etc should be built around a city?

Also all other tips are welcome.

player1

01-04-2006, 21:12

How many cities are reccomended before you reach AD?

When you maintaince starts to drop so that you are forced to have less then 50-60% on science then stop.
Larger expansion would hurt you economicaly

How spread out should the cities be?

4 tiles should be fine. Sometime closer sometime father.
important thing is too place cities near some of the bonus resources since they can give big boost to food commerce or production, after approprice tile improvement is built.

How many farms, cottages etc should be built around a city?

The key is too improve all tiles that your city population is working on (white circles). Don't improve unworked tiles of one city, if other city has worked tiles without improvement. Use your workers efficiently.

Also all other tips are welcome.

Try apolyton.net and civfanatics.com forums.

econ21

01-05-2006, 02:23

How many cities are reccomended before you reach AD?

On huge maps, I tend to build around 6 quickly and then have to slow down as I run into money and/or space problems. I would aim for 12 plus for your steady state, as you need that for some national wonders (Oxford University). You may find you get attacked and can double your kingdom through conquest, but for me that tends to happen well after AD (as England, it tends to be when I get redcoats!). As player1 says, quality is more important than quantity though - a nice mix of land types, ie at least two of the three essentials (food, production and commerce), and some specials is important if the city is to really thrive.

How spread out should the cities be?

I dislike overlapping tiles, so I think that implies 4 squares apart or more. More is ok if the intervening land is poor, as your culture will tend to absorb the gaps but you just can't work them (you can get the resources though).

How many farms, cottages etc should be built around a city?

Every worked tile should have an improvement. Some folk say cottages and watermills are the best (with mines on hills), but I often build farms to keep my cities growing.

Also all other tips are welcome.

I reload the starting game a lot to get a position I like - I don't like being stuck in jungles or tundra.

Go for bronzeworking as your first tech and a worker as your first build, then chop forests to give an early game edge while building settler/warrior/worker alternately.

Try to found and spread religions for money - Judaism usually is attainable for me.

Try to keep a tech lead - heading for alphabet and then tech trading whenever you get a discovery will help. Check the diplomacy screen and its tech tab to keep an eye on what other factions know and will trade.

Keep a strong military - the AI will.

Understand how great people are generated - often you'll get the majority from a single "great person city" that has most of your wonders and specialists. By choosing the type of the specialists in that city you can effectively choose what kind of great people you get - e.g. scientists for academies, prophets for holy cities, engineers for rushing wonders.

Enjoy - it's a fun and challenging game.

Pindar

01-06-2006, 02:46

Hello,

Do you Civ IV people like this better than III?

Does IV include a real world map?

Do the diplomatic replies still seem like a teenager were speaking?

screwtype

01-06-2006, 07:05

I don't think there's a real world map. But there is a sorta-typa-kinda real world map option I think.

Do you Civ IV people like this better than III?

I can't maintain an interest in the game for more than a few hours at a time. Then again, I never was much of a Civ fan. But Civ3 certainly had much more of the "just one more turn" factor for me.

Do the diplomatic replies still seem like a teenager were speaking?

I think diplomacy is more limited than in Civ3.

frogbeastegg

01-06-2006, 11:04

I never much liked civ 3; I played it quite a bit for a couple of weeks without really enjoying it but falling for the 'one more turn' thing. There were so many concepts I found silly, so many things which I thought should have been fixed or advanced upon which were not, and so many wonderful ideas from Alpha Centauri which were not included, making civ 3 feel far more primitive and backwards. Within a month it was shelved, never to be touched again.

I'm still playing civ 4 and I've been enjoying it from the start. It is a much better game than any other in the series IMO. I like the religious aspect, the way city maintenance is handled, the lack of insane corruption and inter-continental city sprawl. The civic system is brilliant! Just like the same system in Alpha Centauri. Combat is improved too; I like the rock/paper/scissors thing it has going. The AI's have personality, which makes things interesting; they aren't a bunch of identikit generic AIs differentiated only by their colours. The different civs feel unique when you play them too. Wonders are less important, which I also like. There are many ways to play the game, it honestly does feel like it. That’s not just many ways to win, but many ways to play. I like the way resources are handled this time around, and the way paving the entire world in railroads is no longer necessary or even a good idea.

That bad … Nemoy’s quotes are rubbish; bland and he sounds so bored. The wonder movies are also a bit crap; boring even the first time I saw them (not that I ever really cared about wonder movies, but it seems to be an important thing for many). The early stages of the game are very quiet because there is no music; I don’t like the music for the later ages of the game. The interface takes a bit of getting used to. All that is mostly window dressing

Froggy like.

The terra map is supposed to be our world, with various sizes available. I would suppose the largest version would be the most accurate. I haven't played any of them yet.

econ21

01-06-2006, 12:38

I agree with most of what Frogbeastegg said - CivIV is a very good game.

I played Civ2 a lot - got to the stage where I could win on Deity. It was incredibly addictive, but for some reason I never felt I was really enjoying it. I haven't had that experience with any other game. I guess there was a compelling technical challenge, but it was not emotionally satisfying.

I loathed Civ3 and never really gave it a chance. I hated the corruption limit on your empire size and I hated the incredibly slow, characterless combat (I remember moving a horde of troops a square a year and the AI doing the same - it was horrible).

Civ4 is just as compelling as Civ2. I don't buy the argument that it has been dumbed down or over-simplified. They have got rid of some of the stupid micromanagement (checking each city each turn to make sure it would not revolt). But they have added some interesting complexity - eg unit promotions and more of a rock-scissors-paste combat system. In all essentials, I find the game plays remarkably like Civ2 - which is why some folk in this thread have given up on it, saying it is just the same game they've played to death.

But the big difference for me is that this time, the game is really fun! I am not sure exactly why. The combat system is part of it. It was really fun trying to survive a Russian tank onslaught when I had no oil and had to try to kill tanks through human waves and cultivating elite marines with AT promotions. Even the ancient and especially medieval wars are more fun, and more viable, than they were in Civ2 when you tended to hold fire until the end of the game. The combat system is also finely balanced so that quality counts, but can be worn down by quantity unless you are very smart/lucky. You care about your individual units in a way that you don't in Total War games.

The eye-candy is another reason it is fun this time - I thought the game was only so-so until I discovered an option to show the unit animations. More generally, the game has a lot of enjoyable chrome. Being rewarded with a William Shakespeare Great Artist carrying Yorick's skull, who can throw his hands up in a dramatic guesture and "culture bomb" an enemy city is just great fun. The AI characters have personality - not necessarily immature. Ghandhi is a benign type who I would be loathe to mistreat, Isabella of Spain is an infuriating religious zealot, Montezuma is a suicidal nut-job and neighbour from hell etc. I actually like the Spock quotes - he's not bored, he's Spock. The music is pretty good, with the opening music being amazing.

Perhaps the other reason why the game is more fun this time is that it is as challenging as Civ2, but maybe gives you more choice among strategies. In Civ2, I always did essentially the same thing and was guaranteed a win. In this game, it seems more unpredictable what wonders you will get and how things will turn out. I think it is also much more challenging. I think I am playing on Prince, one step up from the "fair" Noble, and finding the AI quite competitive enough. I have no intention of upping the difficulty level further.

I actually have a confession to make. I am currently playing the Europa Barbarorum mod and it is everything we were promised in historical accuracy and in improving the challenge of the game. But I still hanker back to my last unfinished Civ4 game - it was more tense, more exciting and just much more fun.

frogbeastegg

01-06-2006, 18:12

On the quotes, that is another area AC spoiled me. The tech quotes in that game were great. For those who didn't play, you can see some of the best here (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0292917/quotes). I liked the musings, the philosophy, the in-game humour, the bits of history both real and invented for the game's background, and the voice actors were amongst the best I've encountered in a game.

Compared to those [bored sounding droning voice]Pig iron. Pig iron. I got pig iron.[/voice] is no good at all. :shrug: I don't like Star Trek, I don't like Spock, and I'd rather have a narrator who sounds like he cares than someone famous who sounds like he can't even be bothered. It's not an interesting quote in the first place, anyway. Most of them aren't.

But it's a minor thing overall.

The unit promotions, on the other hand, how could I forget them? I love them! Specialisation ...

Pindar

01-06-2006, 18:35

Thank you for the replies gentlemen. My first experience with the Civ. series was version III. I was really surprised by how "un-fun" it was while still having that mentioned "well, one more turn" quality. I actually bought an expansion to it: I don't remember the title "empires" or something where the focus was various ages of the world. I liked that idea, but the game still suffered from the earlier mentioned qualities of the base game. Obviously, I haven't bought the new IV, but am a little interested based on the comments.

Simon: the EB mod. is out? I have been playing RTR and recently the new big BI mod by Attila over at TW Center. What are the differences between EB and RTR?

Vladimir

01-06-2006, 18:57

The corruption issue in Civ 3 was easily solved by using the edit feature where you could tweak various options, colors, etc. The only "disadvantage" I’ve found was that you needed more cities to build the Forgotten Something-or-Other which you needed less. If I had talent or desire I might find that the bland AI could be modified too. Soon I'll be able to afford upgrades for the ancient chimera I call my PC so I'll check IV out. I do prefer to wait for any patches/mods and for the first price drop. Thanks to all for your great reviews.

Ironside

01-06-2006, 19:03

The ones in SMAC is very hard to beat, although I missed this one from that list:
I think, and my thoughts cross the barrier into the synapses of the machine, just as the good doctor intended. But what I cannot shake, and what hints at things to come, is that thoughts cross back. In my dreams, the sensibility of the machine invades the periphery of my consciousness: dark, rigid, cold, alien. Evolution is at work here, but just what is evolving remains to be seen.

Commissioner Pravin Lal
"Man and Machine"

And this one, the scariest one IMO.

Mary had a little lamb,
Little lamb little lamb,
Mary had a little lamb,
whose fleece was white as snow.

Assassins' Redoubt
Final Transmission

And what that makes the above one scary is that Assassins' Redoubt is a Spartan base (the most militant faction) and that you get psi attack with that tech.
Somehow is destroying the mind of a person worse than killing him. For me atleast :inquisitive: .

I did find a more complete list anyway SMAC quotes (http://www.generationterrorists.com/quotes/smac.html)

Back on topic for Civ 4, it's fun, but I still miss surrendering factions from SMAC.

Dutch_guy

01-07-2006, 00:17

I'm considering to buy this game, though I do have some questions about it, since I have never played a Civilization game before.

what is combat like in Civ4 ?

Is the game about collecting enough resources to pound your enemies or is resource gathering not a first priority in the game ?

Is there a lot of micro management involved, more or less than MTW/RTW ?

How good is the diplomacy, do alliances last, does the AI know how to manage it's alliances ?

Is the AI any good, in your opinions, does it - as an example - refuse to a ceasfire while it has but one settlement left ?

How steep is the learning curve of the game,more like HOI 2 or MTW/RTW?

And finally I have a more technical question to ask of you.
I've downloaded the Demo, installed it , then tried to play it..however after double clicking and you can see it loading, a window pops up saying that an error has occurred and then proceeds to ask me if I want to report it to microsoft or not.
The problem occurs while Civ4 is checking XML, it always orders me to terminate the loading at that point.
Has anyone heard of this problem if so , does anyone know how to fix this?

if it helps, these are my specs.
Intel pentium 4 COU 2.66 GHz.
512 MbRam
Direct X 9.0c
NVIDIA Geforce 4 MX 440 with AGP8X

thanks in advance.

:balloon2:

econ21

01-07-2006, 01:08

Simon: the EB mod. is out? I have been playing RTR and recently the new big BI mod by Attila over at TW Center. What are the differences between EB and RTR?

[We're heading a little off-topic here, but I hope frogbeastegg will indulge us:] EB is out as an open beta. I was a little shocked at how incomplete it is - I am currently wondering whether to give up my EB Roman campaign due to CTDs - whereas RTR has always seemed amazingly polished to me.

EB and RTR are aiming at very similar things with the units and battle system - and they both hit their targets superbly IMO. If you've looked at the faction previews in the past for EB, you'll have a good idea of what to expect and won't be disappointed (although RTR has spoiled the water a little by producing similarly good units for some factions - eg Rome and now Germany). Both mods are also doing similar things with limiting recruitment to homelands etc. As a result, the games feel more authentic at both tactical and strategic levels; and are aesthetically very nice.

The pleasant shock I had with EB was how much they were trying to change other aspects of the game. They use scripting to pump up the AI and alter general's traits in very fun ways etc etc. As a result, it is more ambitious and I think more challenging than RTR.

Both EB and RTR share the same fault, IMO, of being a little glacial in play speed. RTR because it increases the province number; EB because it has 4 turns a season - I think you have to play 1000 turns to get the Marian reforms. Whereas in Civ, you are always tempted to go for another turn, with the RTW mods, I am often tempted to take a break.

econ21

01-07-2006, 01:30

I can't help with your technical problem, but here's some opinions on your other questions:

what is combat like in Civ4 ?

I think it is fun. You attack with one unit at a time, but you can have stacks of units with different strengths and the best defender will meet the attacker. So if a knight attacks a stack, it will be met by its pikeman rather than a vulnerable missile unit. This is balanced by the ability of artillery to damage multiple units in a stack. Units strength gradually deteriorates, so a tank may crush one infantry but may be destroyed if attacked consecutively by three or four. There's a fair variety of units - for example, in the medieval period, you have longbows, crossbows, knights, horse archers, macemen, pikemen, catapults etc. Each faction has its own unique unit - praetorians and redcoats being the standouts, IMO. Units gain experience and can use it to buy some very nice, but generally context specific upgrades (eg +25% attacking in cities; or the an AT bonus etc). That means they have individuality and you treasure your veterans (who can be upgraded overtime, from lowly warrior to mech infantry).

Is the game about collecting enough resources to pound your enemies or is resource gathering not a first priority in the game ?

I think it is essentially a building game. You build up your cities, and they provide you with units and technology (to make better units and better city buildings). Nurturing good cities is the first piority of the game, but it is not resource gathering in a twitch RTS sense. It is rather cerebral and all about trade-offs and choices - you'll agonise over where exactly to put your cities, so they get access to the many things they need to thrive. Combat adds a necessary element of danger, for me, but it is not a wargame in the way TW is, and I like trying to survive combat but don't seek it out.

Is there a lot of micro management involved, more or less than MTW/RTW ?

More micromanagement, I guess, but I find the turns seem to fly past more quicky. I guess TW bogs down in the battles, which are very time consuming. In Civ, you can be at peace for 500 years or so, and whereas that would be deadly dull in TW, in Civ4 I find it very rewarding. Largely, this is because the AI is often biting at your heels and threatening to invade you, so peaceful survival is non-trivial.

How good is the diplomacy, do alliances last, does the AI know how to manage it's alliances ?

I like it. You can keep the "nice" civs onside throughout the game - a diplomatic victory is one way of winning the game. There are some predictable headbangers, but if you are superior in power, they will tend to keep away.

Is the AI any good, in your opinions, does it - as an example - refuse to a ceasfire while it has but one settlement left ?

I think the AI is great. I thought that about Civ2 as well - Civ has one of the most competitive AIs of any strategy games. Far better than TW. On harder difficulty levels, you are always holding your breath, to see if you can keep ahead of the AI in tech and if you can deterr attack. Somehow the challenge is also maintained throughout the game - no mean feat, considering the "broken" endgames of TW. To give you one example of smart AI - in my first game, the Japanese attacked me by land and sea in the feudal era. I beat off both attacks, but when the dust had settled, I realised they had destroyed my only two bronze mines (needed to make good troops). The AI was so smart and the dumb human hadn't even realised what was being done to him...:embarassed:

How steep is the learning curve of the game,more like HOI 2 or MTW/RTW?

Easy to learn, hard to master? I think it is very accessible and intuitive - you can pretty much leap in. But as you explore, you will find a lot of depth to the game. Probably like TW. I have not played HOI, but my impression is that Paradox games tend to emphasis realism whereas Civ is like a cartoon representation of history. They may both be complex, but a Paradox game may tend to have messy complexity - because reality is messy - whereas Civ2 can be more elegant.

NodachiSam

01-07-2006, 04:02

I always appreciate your writing Simon. I bought Civ 3 but was terribly unhappy after awhile yet like someone else said it still had an inexplicable just one more turn quality. One of my friends really seems to like it and a few people here seem to.

I really want to get my hands on Alpha Centauri for some reason. I'd love it if they had a demo so I could try it somehow first lest I buy it and be rendered very dissapointed.

frogbeastegg

01-07-2006, 10:30

So no one has an excuse for missing out on AC, here's a link (http://www.gamepro.com/computer/pc/games/files/958.shtml) to a page with the demo.

Now go try it! And then buy the game! It's old, it was never pretty even in its own day, but in some things it is unsurpassed. Try and get the version of AC with the expansion bundled in with it; that's the version I have (Sid Meier's Planetry Pack). The expansion itself is as rare as hen's teeth with gold fillings.

Efrem

01-07-2006, 12:35

Theres an expansion!!!

Damn I don't have that.

Shahed

01-07-2006, 18:08

Thanks to this thread I bought the game. Great thread. Only I was so eager I did'nt notice if it's in Dutch or English, hopefully there is an English option ! :D This is going to be a much needed gaming Saturday night!

Lanemerkel1

01-08-2006, 04:04

I hate Civilization III

even on the smallest map you almost have to have two heads 4 arms and a crapload of patience to get anything done (A.K.A. too much management needed)

Shahed

01-08-2006, 11:44

Two Words:

Excellent game!

Two problems:
-The manual is in Dutch! (game has language options thankfully) Is there a place I can download it in English ?
-I want to use a cheat to see the whole map at the beginning of the first turn. Right now I'mnot that great and @ 1500 I'm still using Spearmen *ahem* so I'd prefer to use a no fog cheat to decide if I can actually play THAT map or not before I spend hours going to prehistoric eras. :)

Thanks for all the comments and thanks for your help.

Voigtkampf

01-08-2006, 15:02

Could someone post some interesting screenshots from your games?

Dutch_guy

01-09-2006, 17:02

So I finally got the game, the full version.

My first impressions so far is that it is a time consuming game - in a good way.
It is nothing like other games I've played thus far, and that is a good thing.

However, I do have a question concerning tactics;

What are your starting ''moves'', meaning , what do you built / train the first few moves.

What are good,basic skills to survive the initial stage of the game.

What Civics do you usually choose,and why ?

How do you succesfully attack and destroy enemy villages ( in the early ages ),any tips concerning the sieging of those enemy city's ?

Also. Thanks you Simon for your perfect answers to my questions :2thumbsup:

:balloon2:

econ21

01-09-2006, 17:55

What are your starting ''moves'', meaning , what do you built / train the first few moves.

I am a believer in the "worker chop" strategy. Start by training a worker and researching bronze working. Around the time the worker is ready, you should have the technology to chop down forests. If you do this, you get around 45 production hammers. This can greatly speed up your training of subsequent units and so almost eliminate the city stagnation that occurs while training settlers and workers.

So, using worker chop, I tend to train "worker, settler, warrior" and repeat, until I have around 6 cities. The settler builds a new city and the warrior escorts him; the worker does the "worker chop" routine around the new city.

I tend to make one city (not my capital), my army training city, so that gets a barracks. I also try to get some early wonders - I like the parthenon and the oracle. Hence, my capital will tend to build wonders and some other city, ideally one near flood plains, produce the settlers.

What are good,basic skills to survive the initial stage of the game.

Not sure what you mean by skills? Player strategies? Or in-game technologies? Either way, you will soon face an on-rush of barbarians, often wielding axes. So you need a defence. I like to meet fire with fire and so build my own axemen - others like archers but they don't stop barbarians destroying your mines etc - so I need to find copper and mine it asap. Reducing the fog of war and getting territory bordering AI factions eliminates the spawning of barbarians, so it is a relatively short window of threat in most cases.

Thereafter, the threat is the AI nations. Discovering a religion and sending missionaries to convert your neighbours is one way of making friends (discovering a religion and leaving your neighbours with a different religion is one way of making enemies). The AI tends to have around 4 units per city, so I guess you could do likewise to reduce the threat. I play a more high-wire act and have a weak military (I like butter, not guns), which makes the game scarey.

If war does come, I find having a good road network the key to a successful defence. You need mobility, especially if - like me - you start off with a small military.

In terms of technologies, after bronze working, I aim to be the first to discover a religion (sometimes I get Hinduism, but usually it is Judaism). Try to get the oracle for a free technology. Then I rush for alphabet. When I have it, I trade techs to backfill my technologies. But I do not trade alphabet, so I keep a monopoly on tech trades. Later on, whenever I discover a new tech, I see if I can trade it, to keep a tech lead. On Prince, I usually keep a tech lead until around the time of biology, when the AI starts to overtake me.

What Civics do you usually choose,and why ?

I never worry too much with civics. Generally, you should end up with the most advanced civics by the end of the game (although I forgo environmentalism and free religion), but there is no rush as they often reward only end-game situations (e.g. lots of towns). Organised religion is a priority early on, while I am spreading my own discovered religion. Later, I like pacificism, because with the parthenon and a philosophical Civ, you get lots of Great People. Representation is great in the early game, when you tend to have only around 5 significant cities anyway. The economic civics come too late to concern me much and the legal ones are a bit uninspiring, although bureaucracy is handy as my capital ends up building most of my wonders and being my science powerhouse.

How do you succesfully attack and destroy enemy villages ( in the early ages ),any tips concerning the sieging of those enemy city's ?

I generally don't bother attacking cities until I get catapults. If I am attacked, I just aim to throw back the attacker (kill off one or two offensives and they will sue for peace) - not to counter-invade. You could rely on swordsmen but it would be too painful (unless you are Roman). When you get catapults, it's just a question of being methodical. Bring four catapults, then pound the defences to zero. Then do kamikaze attacks with your catapults to cause collateral damage to the defenders and mop up the survivors with axemen/macemen/whatever. Choosing the right promotions - ie city raider - helps and bear in mind that gunpowder units don't get city raider, so treasure your old city raider warriors etc which can become killer units in the late game.