Civilization IV

**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

Originally Posted by Slyspy

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?

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:

Code:

<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

Originally Posted by Simon Appleton

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

Originally Posted by Del Arroyo

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