270 replies to this topic

[Security Squish]

EHK for a True GOP, on Feb 25 2009, 23.42, said:

But if you keep producing soldiers you're gonna go over your manpower limit and run into severe maintenance penalties that will force you to mint and ratchet up your inflation while you fall behind in tech. Before you know it your Men at Arms will be getting their asses kicked by line infantry. Not good.

I'm guessing that you are talking about EU3, not Civ4.  Very true by the way.

[EHK for Darwin]

Yeah the military strategy of the AI is one of the few major failings of he game. It doesn't get creative, doesn't maximize its potential (which always annoys me about the higher difficulty levels. The computer doesn't play better, it just cheats more), and doesn't know how to best use the military assets it has. Its predictable, redundant, and really easy to exploit sometimes. Of course this isn't a criticism limited to Civ4 as poor AI is pretty much endemic of nearly every video game ever made. I've got to play a human opponent sometime.

[EHK for Darwin]

Security Squish, on Feb 25 2009, 23.06, said:

I'm guessing that you are talking about EU3, not Civ4.  Very true by the way.

Yep. Just got EU3 Complete (had the original but now I've got the expansions too) for $10 and loading up the Magna Mundi mod. My Civ4 addiction is on hold for the moment.

[Papirolle]

Yes, Brude, city specialization becomes more and more important as you play on more difficult settings.
You have your military production, economy center, research center, Wonderspammer, Great People Farm and so on. You need to plan ahead which Wonders to build where (only 2 national wonders per city allowed).
I think the game becomes interesting at Prince-level, before that it's just about learning the basics.
I play on Monarch/Emperor and can win fairly comfortably on Monarch. Playing on Emperor is fun sometimes if I have the time to really get into it, but usually it's too much of a chore. The harder the setting you play, the more attention to micromanagement is needed.

Try out the Cottage economy first, it's easiest to begin with. Pick a leader with the Financial trait. Build cities with lots of grass plains in the BFC (big fat cross) and cottage them. In the long run this will give you huge amounts of commerce.

The Specialist Economy can be more effective early in the game. Build the Pyramids quickly and get Representation and make specialists in your cities from the food surplus. This requires cities with lots of food resources and preferably floodplains tiles in the BFC.
Here you need to start counting food income for each city. Each population in the city requires 2 food and also 2 food per specialist.
A floodplain will give you 3 food (4 if farmed) and more as the game continues (Biology for example). So for each farmed floodplain you can have another specialist in that city. A Pig tile gives you 6 food (I think) so that's another two specialists.
Specialists generate Great People Points and these will give you Great People every now and then which can be settled in your cities and boost them to absurd capabilities. Great Scientists goes into you research city and Prophets are great for your production cities.
A leader with the Philosophical trait will double the Great People Points earned.

If you settle all Great People in the capital (for example) you'll get a city with skyhigh production capacity which can churn out Wonders really fast. This is called a Wonder Economy/Settled Specialist Economy. Works great together with Bureaucracy. Your entire civ is based on one powerhouse city.

This site is your best friend:
http://forums.civfanatics.com

It's been a really long time since I played Civ4 now, so I don't remember all the finer details now, but now the old Civ addiction is starting to kick in again. :D

Edited by Papirolle, 26 February 2009 - 05:42 AM.

[Jacen]

I FOUND THE CIV4 DISKS!!!

This is the ultimate double-edged sword. My new marriage may fail due to this.

I loaded it up last night and played for like 2 hours which seemed like only 5 minutes had gone by.

Question: I'd like to buy the "Beyond the Sword" expansion. I know there was another expansion pack released before itcallled Warlords. I'm not really interested in the scenarios, I mostly want the core game elements that were upgraded and tweaked etc. If I just buy Beyond the Sword, will I get all the improvements and new stuff added to the game from "Warlords" ?

If that is true, I just want Beyond the Sword, as Colonization sucked, correct?

[squiddly]

Jacen, on May 18 2009, 18.58, said:

If I just buy Beyond the Sword, will I get all the improvements and new stuff added to the game from "Warlords" ?

Yeah, I'm pretty sure BTS has everything from Warlords apart from the scenarios.

[Brude]

Just get Beyond The Sword.  The Warlords scenarios are no great loss - I think I played each one once, maybe twice for a few.  But all of the best Warlords game mechanics are to be found in Beyond the Sword, as well as all of the factions added in that expansion, plus more.

I went a bit nuts on Civ about 2 months back.  Now I'm playing an endless game of Rome: Total War (Total Realism mod).  I'm close to winning, but it is...endless.  They really didn't play-balance that aspect of it nearly so well as it was done on Civ IV.

[oneeye]

huge maps are still quite challenging

[Brude]

Bach, on May 18 2009, 18.05, said:

huge maps are still quite challenging

Sure, but they are an option.  In Rome you have either a long game or a short game.  Civ gives you varying size maps and varying game lengths - more choices and the balance is just better, all round, IMO.

[EHK for Darwin]

Jacen, on May 18 2009, 11.58, said:

Question: I'd like to buy the "Beyond the Sword" expansion. I know there was another expansion pack released before itcallled Warlords. I'm not really interested in the scenarios, I mostly want the core game elements that were upgraded and tweaked etc. If I just buy Beyond the Sword, will I get all the improvements and new stuff added to the game from "Warlords" ?

The scenarios aren't that special and you get all the gameplay mechanics from Beyond the Sword, so you're better off skipping Warlords. My favorite player-made Mod happens to be available only for Warlords at the moment however, which is about the only real reason to get it. Presumably they'll get their long overdue BTS version up and running eventually, but who knows.

[DJDonegal]

Man I am looking forward to hitting this up when I get home.  It's been so long.

On another note - I was checking out the Civ series on Wikipedia, and I notice that Civ III first came out in 2001 and Civ IV first came out in 2005 (that long ago already!?) so based on that, we should be getting a Civ V within the next year or so?

Is Revolutions supposed to be "Civ V"?  It's not on the PC so I'm guessing not...

[denstorebog]

Quote

Is Revolutions supposed to be "Civ V"? It's not on the PC so I'm guessing not...

No. It's basically a stripped-down, cartoonish-looking version of Civ for the console players, tailored to be played with a gamepad *shudder*.

[oneeye]

I think CIV 5 got delayed because of revolutions and colonization which were both pretty weak imo compared to a stellar civ4.

I'm thinking civ 5 should be announced soon for late 2009 or early 2010 but I have no evidence, just thinking since colonization was out in sep 2008 and they usually have one product or xpack per year.

[Warlock of Quarth]

Just started a new game this weekend playing as the Greeks with Pericles on Monarch. Gotta love this game, 4 years old and still as addictive as ever. I hope we'll get some news about a Civ5 this year, it's about time for a new one!

[mcbigski]

Just started a new game myself tonight.  Honest Abe just vassalized the remaining two Spanish islands.  Trying to pump out a Great Prophet in Washington so I can build a shrine in Madrid, which is a double holy city, and had the Great Lighthouse.  Things aren't looking good for Saladin either.  It's 40AD and in 5 turns when I finish Construction, he's going to get smashed by some City Raider III swords, a few longbows and fistful of catapults.  Protective won't help him now.

Immortal level isn't so hard when you start with three grassland riverside gems. ;)

[Brude]

mcbigski, you play on a whole other level of depth that I don't even begin to touch with that game it sounds like.  What skill level are you at?  I can barely beat the game at Prince level.  I'm still not good at specializing cities - I really should read up on those strategies again.

[mcbigski]

I can usually beat Emperor comfortably.  Lately I've won a few games on Immortal, probably could have won a lot more if I didn't give up too easily.  I need still need to have a great opening to allow me to catch up to the AI sometime in the middle ages, but it does seem daunting when they're at twice the score and have 7 or 8 more techs than you do.  Still, with judicious beelining and tech trading, you can dig yourself out, if your neighbors aren't of the psychotic variety.  Mostly this just means that I've spent far too much time playing CIV.

[DJDonegal]

I'm still sitting at Noble.  And I have no intention of moving up the next time I play.  Or any time thereafter.

[EHK for Darwin]

Pretty steady at Monarch myself. Perfect balance of challenge and playability. Any higher and you really have micromanage everything to keep up with the rabidly cheating AI.

[Papirolle]

I like the Monarch difficulty best too. Higher than that and it becomes more work than play and that makes Papi a dull boy. :P
Although I play at Emperor occasionally.