270 replies to this topic

[EHK for Darwin]

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Total Realism was an awesome mod for Civ 3. With Civ 4 doing a lot of the things that the Civ 3 TR mod was attempting to do, I can only imagine how awesome this newer version has become.

Heh, I enjoyed playing it alot on Civ 3 as well. That full earth map of theirs for Civ 3 was fucking nuts. (anywhere from 5 to 30 foods from a given fish square if I remember correctly. Get cities of size 60+)

Actually that was one of my bigger disappointments with Beyond the Sword. Most of what they added Total Realism had either already done or worked on extensively. TR had just about every new unit and building that was added to BtS. Worked hard to improve the spy system, which BtS totally revamped, but I found myself longing for the TR version. The buildings using resources (so that only a certain number of said buildings can be built, according to your resources) was already done in TR, not the same thing as the corporations, but using similar initial concepts.

Those mods will spoil ya. That said though, BtS actually deserved to be called an expansion. It added not only new shit, but entire new game concepts that really add a couple more dimensions to your strategy. Warlords was kind of a disappointment in that regard. However owning Warlords is 100% worthwhile if only to play the TR mod. Can't wait til they put out a BtS version.

[Iskaral Pust]

You're all killing me!  I want Civ4 so much, but I don't have time for it.  I tried to console myself by telling myself it would be terrible.  I found Civ: Call To Power to be pretty weak and went back to Civ2 instead.  I haven't really had time to play in the past 3-4 years, so Civ3 and Civ4 have passed me by.  Now you evil people are planting ideas and I'm going to have to buy Civ4 and endure wifely disapproval of playing until 4am.

Throw me a freakin' bone.  Does less micro management at least speed up the game play?

[EHK for Darwin]

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Throw me a freakin' bone. Does less micro management at least speed up the game play?

You know as well as I do that a good game of Civ can see the sun coming up before you blink even with micro-management gone.

Micromanagement improvement:

Its easier to manage all the cities in the empire from a single menu if you want to go that route. Especially helpful in the late game eras when you're friggen huge. You can set endless building queue's for the cities you'd rather not bother with. You can set continent or worldwide rally points. Or you can select any number of cities you want and set rally points for units produced from those cities and another rally point for others.

That irritating late game pollution of Civ 3 is gone. Pollution is worked into the city itself with each 'unhealthy' point taking away a single food from the city, essentially stunting growth. (until you build the proper buildings to overcome it)

Worker automation actually works. The best its ever been. Early game its still not the best idea, but late game when you say...need to turn your entire empire over to railroads, you can't beat it. Just automate those fuckers and let them move.

You can tell the city governors what to focus on, whether it be commerce/food/production and that influences which squares they place the population on. Cities have the usual Civ squares plus specialists who provide various culture/tech/commerce/production (but never food) bonuses that you can use the population on. You don't have to manage this. And its really not necessary to do so until you get to the much higher difficulty games. But it can add ALOT of micromanagement if you choose to mess with it. But its really kind of optional. And more important early game than late, and the computer tends to make smart enough choices for it not to matter early game.

But dude...this is Civ. There's no such thing as a short game. (although BtS does have a playable quick game option that I hear works really well, but I've never tried it.)

[Mister Manticore]

All I can suggest is that you use the voice of Leonard Nimoy to soothe your wife's ire.

[Iskaral Pust]

Thanks EHK - very helpful, but also very unhelpful if you get my meaning.  I guess my wife will just have to be a Civ widow again for a while.  

At least it's better than being a golf widow.  Golfers tell such boring stories.  My tales of vanquishing the Romans, Greeks and Germans are riveting.  She also likes to hear about how I structure my Civ economy - I can tell from the way her eyes glaze over, as though she is trying to picture it in her mind.

[Brude]

Usotsuki, on Sep 15 2008, 12.07, said:

I'm very fond of Beyond the Sword but I wouldn't expend too much on completing the mini-missions within the game, unless the goal is something you were planning to achieve anyway (the Greed mission) the reward isn't really worth the additional effort.

Yeah, I don't go out of my way to do these things, but one of them was to build 7 Colessiums - well, since I tend to build them eventually anyway and they are pretty cheap, it wasn't much to turn a bit of my production over to that and get it done - I mean, they give you 100 turns to do it.

EHK for Obama, on Sep 15 2008, 13.51, said:

Worker automation actually works. The best its ever been. Early game its still not the best idea, but late game when you say...need to turn your entire empire over to railroads, you can't beat it. Just automate those fuckers and let them move.

It mostly works, and I'm pretty lazy so I usually have it turned on probably earlier than most people do, anyway.  But sometimes it does random weird shit - like in the game I'm in right now it keeps building a fort over a square of silver resources that is in a location not even remotely strategic.  I sent a worker there to make a mine, he did it, I automated him, a few turns later I come back and the mine has been replaced by a fort again.  Oh well, I can't be bothered.  It's just 1 silver and I'm winning by a LOT right now.  It's amazing how fast it's come back to me, probably need to move up a skill level again for next game.

[Jacen]

Civ 4 was great while it lasted. I liked almost everything they added, though the religion aspect was kinda of half-baked. The Leonard Nimoy voiceovers were a great little touch. However, after awhile the game got boring. Then I started using cheats (don't do it!). You start small and just help your treasury out a bit, next thing you know you're putting wine, wheat, steel, gold, diamonds, oil and bonus reasources around each of your cities. At that point the game is ruined and it's hard to play it again after that.

The other thing I kinda am tired of the Civ games when it comes to military matters. The 4th game made some nice additions in this regard with various combat bonuses, but overwhile it still seems so basic and mundane, I hate that. I want to pull of some grand strategy maneuvers and feel like an actual General, when in the game the combat is basically a total grind with very little thinking involved. Simply send non-stop tanks at the enemy stack until they fold etc.

[EHK for Darwin]

Jacen, on Sep 15 2008, 17.09, said:

Civ 4 was great while it lasted. I liked almost everything they added, though the religion aspect was kinda of half-baked. The Leonard Nimoy voiceovers were a great little touch. However, after awhile the game got boring. Then I started using cheats (don't do it!). You start small and just help your treasury out a bit, next thing you know you're putting wine, wheat, steel, gold, diamonds, oil and bonus reasources around each of your cities. At that point the game is ruined and it's hard to play it again after that.

The other thing I kinda am tired of the Civ games when it comes to military matters. The 4th game made some nice additions in this regard with various combat bonuses, but overwhile it still seems so basic and mundane, I hate that. I want to pull of some grand strategy maneuvers and feel like an actual General, when in the game the combat is basically a total grind with very little thinking involved. Simply send non-stop tanks at the enemy stack until they fold etc.

Heh, I have the same damned problem. That's why I turn off the cheat option before I start a new game. Helps me resist my less savory impulses.

Yeah the computer isn't exactly a strategic genius, really need other human players for those Hannibal over the Alps moments. But some of the mods tweak the combat system enough to make it interesting. And just plain ole BtS has enough unit pro and con bonuses to largely require that you practice some combined arms strategies unless you're way more advanced.

[mcbigski]

Brudewollen, on Sep 15 2008, 17.38, said:

It mostly works, and I'm pretty lazy so I usually have it turned on probably earlier than most people do, anyway.  But sometimes it does random weird shit - like in the game I'm in right now it keeps building a fort over a square of silver resources that is in a location not even remotely strategic.  I sent a worker there to make a mine, he did it, I automated him, a few turns later I come back and the mine has been replaced by a fort again.  Oh well, I can't be bothered.  It's just 1 silver and I'm winning by a LOT right now.  It's amazing how fast it's come back to me, probably need to move up a skill level again for next game.

If the tile was outside of any of your cities fat crosses, then it's no big deal.  A fort also functions as whatever improvement is needed to hook a resource up into your trade network.  So, for example, if you know where the oil is (after SciMeth or a random event), you can build a fort on it and as soon as you research Combustion it's instantly hooked up.

I'm assuming that since you weren't working the silver mine, the AI decided that a fort would be better for defense, so if it had no other priorities, it would build over the mine.  Though if it was doing to a mine you were trying have a citizen work, then that's a problem, obviously.

[Brude]

mcbigski, on Sep 15 2008, 21.26, said:

If the tile was outside of any of your cities fat crosses, then it's no big deal.  A fort also functions as whatever improvement is needed to hook a resource up into your trade network.  So, for example, if you know where the oil is (after SciMeth or a random event), you can build a fort on it and as soon as you research Combustion it's instantly hooked up.

I'm assuming that since you weren't working the silver mine, the AI decided that a fort would be better for defense, so if it had no other priorities, it would build over the mine.  Though if it was doing to a mine you were trying have a citizen work, then that's a problem, obviously.

Ah, didn't realize that about forts.  Yeah, it was outside of my nearest 'fat-plus' so there were no citizens to work it.  So, a fort gives you the resource but doesn't give you the tile improvement bonuses that a standard improvement would (a mine, well, farm, etc.)?

[mcbigski]

Brudewollen, on Sep 15 2008, 22.03, said:

Ah, didn't realize that about forts.  Yeah, it was outside of my nearest 'fat-plus' so there were no citizens to work it.  So, a fort gives you the resource but doesn't give you the tile improvement bonuses that a standard improvement would (a mine, well, farm, etc.)?

Correct.  In the fat cross it's generally better to build the standard improvement to get the bonuses, but if you're never going to work that tile anyway, it really doesn't matter.

You can also move naval units into forts, so you can use them as a canal.  May or may not be able to base aircraft in them as well - I usually don't have so many aircraft that I can't find places to put them already.

My biggest problem with BTS is the espionage.  The active missions are just way too repetitive and cumbersome and since the AI doesn't use them effectively they are imbalanced.  I do like the passive espionage effects though as far as getting line of sight, power graphs, etc, but I wish they had an option to disable all active missions.  The option in the last patch which disables Espionage entirely is a bit wonky though, as buildings which generate EPs start kicking out Culture instead.  As well, the damn city governor always wants to assign spy specialists, even though I think an espionage point isn't worth as much as a beaker or coin, at least for my play style.  And I don't like getting Great Spy points in my Great Person pools either.  YMMV on that one.

Edited by mcbigski, 15 September 2008 - 09:41 PM.

[Brude]

mcbigski, on Sep 15 2008, 22.39, said:

You can also move naval units into forts, so you can use them as a canal.  May or may not be able to base aircraft in them as well - I usually don't have so many aircraft that I can't find places to put them already.

Probably aircraft too.  I know you can base nukes in forts.  Can you really string forts to make a canal though?  Or can you just bridge maybe two squares that way?

[Jaxom 1974]

*sigh*

Reading this thread really isn't helping.  I want this game.

[mcbigski]

Brudewollen, on Sep 15 2008, 23.00, said:

Probably aircraft too.  I know you can base nukes in forts.  Can you really string forts to make a canal though?  Or can you just bridge maybe two squares that way?

I think the rule is that the tile with the fort has to be adjacent to water for it to serve as a canal.  I believe you can bridge two squares if both are coastal.  It might also be possible to bridge across a third square if the middle square in the bridge is a city - never tried that before but it might work.

[Jaxom 1974]

Mister Manticore, on Sep 16 2008, 09.41, said:

Buy it!  Buy it!  Buy it now!

Or wait a few weeks for the Christmas Sales.  Either is good.

*sigh*

I think the Christmas sales are going to win this battle.  At least those seem to start earlier and earlier every year.

[Brude]

The past two weeks I reactivated my Civ 4 addiction and I even got my roommate to finally buy BtS and he's loving it too.  He's been playing the Galactic Civ-like scenario alongside regular games of BtS.

I just won my first game on Prince skill level last night.  There seems to be a big jump in difficulty between Noble and Prince levels, more-so than between the earlier skill levels.  I might have won an earlier game but I accidentally voted a foe a diplomatic victory when I thought I was voting for him as Apostolic Palace leader - whoops!  I had a chance on that one for maybe a space race win.

I usually win by space race, organizing other kinds of wins is much more difficult for me.  Culture wins need to go well almost from the very beginning of the game - or at least very early.  I've done it with as few as 6 cities, though, in fact I found a method on a message board somewhere that insisted this was the optimal size civ to do it with - you don't waste too much time early on growing your civ and it gives you 3 cities to build the things your 3 culture cities won't be able to focus on (armies especially).  Conquest/domination victories require a LOT of extra hours, moving all those units and fighting all those combats just takes time - but they can be very satisfying.  Diplomatic victories - either they happen or they don't in my experience.  Sometimes I find I've made lucky choices in my relations and everybody loves me enough to vote for me - also, if you are powerful enough you can control enough votes to at least get you close.

[DanteGabriel]

Figured I'd put in an endorsement for the 40 civs mod for Beyond the Sword, which, yes, allows you to play as one of 40 civilizations on a positively gigantic map of Earth.  They have all the "official" civilizations represented plus a ton of additions like the Aborigines, Tibetans, Canadians, Magyars, etc.  The map is so huge there's enough room for people to start in roughly accurate locations (yes, Europe has room for the Spanish, French, Romans, Greeks, Germans et al), but of course there's little room for expansion unless you start conquering your neighbors.  All the new civs have their own unique units and buildings.  It's a little buggy, obviously it's a big memory hog when it grinds through 39 AI player turns, and it crashes occasionally, but I've found it to be great fun.

http://forums.civfan.....Bastian-Bux's

Edited by DanteGabriel, 29 January 2009 - 03:58 PM.

[Jacen]

This probably says something about me, but I always went for a Conquest victory. The other victory conditions don't seem as satisfying. Grinding it out and invading places can be tedious but it was better than just voting on something, or having a pop-up tell you your culture is the awesome and you win.  At least with the space victory you had to build something before you got stomped on.Those others though, are so....abstract.

And the funny part is, the assembling your army part was always more fun for me than the actual combat (combat in CIV games has always been a chore). Carefully setting up amd moving units to my massive force build up of battleships,carriers, tanks planes, infantry etc. was always fun. The excitement when the actual invasion starts and I realize, it turns out I don't have enough men to conquer this civ in 5 turns, etc. And for whatever reason big invasions were the most fun in the modern era.

Edited by Jacen, 29 January 2009 - 04:09 PM.

[Cuellar]

Anyone try out colonization?

I fired up Civ4 again,b ut couldn't find my Bts disc 1, so was doing warlords... and it's not bad.  The wars though take obsenely too long... especially in multiplayer.  It is one huge advantage of RTS games, since you don't have to sit there and wait for 1 hour for a teammate's war to be done (IE the Wife who likes to take in 5000 units with her to annihilate every opponent).

[DanteGabriel]

Cuellar, on Jan 29 2009, 16.57, said:

Anyone try out colonization?

Yes.  It is decidedly blah.

It just doesn't seem very deep or interesting.  You start colonies (cities) and grow your population and set up resource gathering and industry (harvest tobacco so you can build a tobacconist's and make cigars and sell at a profit to the natives and the Old Country, etc) but that's about it.  There is no technology tree and very little of the subsystems that made the mainline Civ franchise so deep and compelling.

Would not recommend.