First Impressions (screenshots, etc.)

[yin26]

Was doing the tutorial and had to laugh at this one in the context of ICS:

<img src="http://apolyton.net/upload/view.php?file=1807_Sid_ICS.jpg" border="0" alt="">

You've already seen a lot of the stuff in the special edition box, but here is the fold-out CD holder:

<img src="http://apolyton.net/upload/view.php?file=1807_CD-holder.jpg" border="0" alt="">

After trying to save the tutorial and restarting it after dinner (which, by the way, didn't work as one turn in to the reload I was given a conquest victory!), I decided to launch a game. Noble difficulty (AI and human equal). Highlands map, which I am told should give the AI a strong position:

<img src="http://apolyton.net/upload/view.php?file=1807_FirstGameSetup.jpg" border="0" alt="">

[Akaoz]

Okay... we have one First Impressions thread and one Screenshots thread... And now you have combined the two into one Über-Thread! Good Job! :p

[yin26]

Thank You! :)

Here is something I like right away: The advice on what to build is put right in this pop up text. Very clean and simple:

<img src=http://apolyton.net/upload/view.php?file=1807_AdvisorShortCut.jpg>

[yin26]

Another nice feature: The sound effects change depending on what you are centered on. Frozen wastelands have a nice, howling wind. Forest have chirping birds, etc. Sure, the real test will be the AI and gameplay, but this kind of atmosphere is really, really nice.

[Guynemer]

Liking what I'm hearing.

Of course, the game was just listed as "shipped," so the absolute earliest I'll get it is tomorrow. I've already committed the evening to the LL; Friday I'm working the old 7am-7am shift into Saturday morning, and then I'm working a full day Sunday. I'm just gonna have to cram a lot of civving into Saturday.

[Sirian]

If you research Animal Husbandry, your workers can build Pastures for your Sheep. If you also research Hunting (and then Archery) you can train Archer units to guard the sheep. (Why is this significant? Uh... It's probably not!) :cute:

DISCLAIMER: The above information, while entirely true, may represent information of no direct consequence. We apologize for the inconvenience! Now back to your regularly scheduled "Day One Review". :lol:


- Sirian

[yin26]

Hey, nice tips! If I research scouting plus entertainment, I hope to be able to build the American Idol Wonder!

Here's something REALLY nice:

I was just about to manually set my scout out in to the fog of war, thinking to myself: "Would it be nice if Civ 4 learned from some RTSs out there and let me set him to auto-explore? Maybe in the X-pack." Then, Holy Cow, there it was: Auto Explore!

[Bill3000]

Civ3 had auto-explore as well. :p

[yin26]

Ah, don't recall it as I stopped playing after a few days never to try it again. Good to know, though. Great feature.

[alva]

Exploring is part of the fun!!! why automate it??

[yin26]

Alva: I can see that. Perhaps I'm just on information overload on this first try and welcome the idea of sending them off without worrying about them. As I get more experience, though, I'll probably try to optimize their search paths manually, get huts quicker, etc.

[Locutus]

Originally posted by Sirian
If you research Animal Husbandry, your workers can build Pastures for your Sheep. If you also research Hunting (and then Archery) you can train Archer units to guard the sheep. (Why is this significant? Uh... It's probably not!) :cute:

DISCLAIMER: The above information, while entirely true, may represent information of no direct consequence. We apologize for the inconvenience! Now back to your regularly scheduled "Day One Review". :lol:


- Sirian

NO SHEEP FOR YOU! :lol:

(Move along, people, nothing to see)

[Sirian]

Originally posted by yin26
Alva: I can see that. Perhaps I'm just on information overload on this first try and welcome the idea of sending them off without worrying about them. As I get more experience, though, I'll probably try to optimize their search paths manually, get huts quicker, etc.

OK, a real tip this time. Explorers tend to survive longer in forest/jungle plots. Moving from one to the next, and resisting the temptation to "go faster" by ending unnecessarily out in the open, keeps your exploring units alive for longer, on average.

You can also "see farther" from hilltops, so sometimes it pays to go out of your way to climb up there.

I know the auto-explore tries to do some of this, and succeeds, so it's not a huge deal. Just one of those little things the human can manage better if he cares to.

Something to think about in Game Four or Five, maybe? OK, sorry for pestering you. :)


- Sirian

[abenamer]

My first impression?

Negative stuff first

Tanks still lose to pre-gunpowder units :( I lost two tanks to pikemen... argh! The worst part? You can tell when your units die BEFORE the animation ends because the stats report will show a combat strength of 0.0 for your unit.

Civ4 slows down when you pull out and doesn't let you remove all the labels on the map so that you can just see terrain and cities.

In general, the UI took a step backwards -- kinda disappointing.
Interface is VERY cluttered. The little pieces of bread (for food) and hammers (used to be shields) are everywhere. I prefer it when I can just simply infer from looking at the map what would be going on without the need for "extra" information telling me exactly what was I seeing. Because the artwork is more realistic you now need icons telling you what's on a tile. Unlike earlier Civs, all the tiles are slightly different mimicking real life, yet each hill has exactly the same value in shields. The problem is that some hills are more or less hilly than others and thus your natural inference would be to guess that some hills would allow for more shields than others. That's not the case though. They took away Sid's old design concept of consistent schematized terrain in order to accomodate a more realistic 3d look. I knew this might be a problem in screen shots but it's kinda annoying after a while.

The music is crap in the 1940s and 1960s range. It has a Psycho-like screech to it and strange noirish touches that give the game a neurotic edge that I wish it didn't have. Nothing like an endgame with a psycho killer's theme song going through your brain. It's kinda annoying.

No simple way of getting straight into the city window without clicking on city name and typing "e". I prefer just a double-click on the city. The game is going to invite lots of micromanaging because of all the specialists you can now use. I don't know if this was a good idea.

I don't like the opening movie sequence. It's the worst of all the Civs. It looks like someone made a very tame version of Rome Total War's opening movie and decided to get rid of any dramatic tension in the sequence. How can you have a Civ opening movie sequence that begins and ends in the pre-Christian era??? It's kinda nutty.

Good points...

Religion and culture bombs rock and I love the idea of converting neighboring civs to whatever religion I'm in.

It slows down the pace of the game. It's annoying that you can only travel 10 tiles at a time over railroads but you can't really blitzkrieg like you used to be able to with earlier Civs. No more taking 5 or 6 cities at a turn with a death star-like stack of tanks.

Can't use my super-simple grid of city spam anymore. Much of the terrain can be completely lacking in food or resources. Hence, I can't use my city spam grid like I could in earlier civs.

No more perfect techs -- I remember how war used to break out the minute I got tanks or cav or (as a Persian player - Immortals). Basically, once I got a superior military tech I would go nuts on the AI. Not possible to do that anymore with the way the tech tree is laid out and with the glacial pace of military campaigns.

Lots of diplomacy options -- haven't played with them yet but they ARE interesting.

Of course, my impressions are just off of one game but as you noticed I'm focusing more on UI issues right now as that won't change no matter what level game you're at.

[LaRusso]

yin, did you get clobbered by now? too busy playing? all your base are belong to them?

[alva]

Tanks still lose to pre-gunpowder units
Full health tank?

The little pieces of bread (for food) and hammers (used to be shields) are everywhere.
Option setting

btw, you can minimise the UI, IRC "Controll+i"
I prefer just a double-click on the city.
:confused:
That should be possible.

In general, the UI took a step backwards -- kinda disappointing.

Give it some time, let it grow on you. :)

[alva]

Originally posted by LaRusso
yin, did you get clobbered by now? too busy playing? all your base are belong to them?

Suffering from food poisoning :conspire:

[peterfharris]

Originally posted by alva


Suffering from food poisoning :conspire:

:lol:

Perhaps he has developed "unusual" tastes? ;)

BTW Yin, I am looking forward to seeing your opinion on whether or ICS is viable. :)

[LaRusso]

cmon, yin, don't tell me you are actually SLEEPING?

[yin26]

Yep. Went to sleep. At work now. :(

Civ4 slows down when you pull out and doesn't let you remove all the labels on the map so that you can just see terrain and cities.

There is a button on the bottom right of the screen for this.

No simple way of getting straight into the city window without clicking on city name and typing "e". I prefer just a double-click on the city.

Double click on the city name, not the city. Anyway, I really like the UI so far. I think it's not cluttered at all and represents a great movement forward. But these things are a matter of preference.

I just barely started to play around with ICS issues, but my first impression is that you have to WORK to get good growth ... and that's fantastic! Cities do not automatically start producing wild population growth, even on good tiles, unless you begin to add some farms, build roads to various resources, etc. I can say that getting my first city to grow at anything like a good pace took some thought and effort. Frankly, the idea of producing another Settler couldn't even enter my mind until I got at least a decent growth curve going. But we knew the early game would pose this issue, so I'm curious to work on more optimization of builds, etc., and see what can be done in the latter parts of the early game in to the mid game.

[Solver]

So, Yin, are you telling us you like this game so far :)?

[yin26]

Well, if first impressions count for anything, yes! I won't go on record about the meat of the game --the AI-- until, of course, I actually know what I'm talking about. I really hope that end of things is as strong as a number of the elements I'm seeing so far. :)

[Harovan]

My first impression is, that this game has serious problems! I played but one hour and already discovered one!! :angry:

I lost a Warrior unit with 2 promotions to the lions! :q:

I mean, I lost perfectly healthy, experienced men, armed with big clubs to some blown up pussycats?!??

WTF Firaxis??!! :mad: That is NOT historical accurate!! Every retard knows, that our anciestors died only to nothing less than mammoths!!

Teh Warrior vs Lion problem needs do be fixed ASAP!!! I demand a patch tomorrow at the latest! :doitnow!:

;)

[Solver]

I mean, I lost perfectly healthy, experienced men, armed with big clubs to some blown up pussycats?!??

:lol: :lol:

Yin - well I'm glad there :). I'm sure you'll find the AI to be quite fair, too.

[alva]

Should I tell SR that he (probably) had a bonus against barbs too? :scared::conspire:;)

[Nikolai]

Yin liking Civ4 is a great sign.:b:

[Harovan]

Originally posted by alva
Should I tell SR that he (probably) had a bonus against barbs too? :scared::conspire:;)

What, you're still calling me SR? After I was doing my best to imitate one of our famous Civ3 critics? I demand to be called Coracle II from now on. :cute:

[hexagonian]

Originally posted by Sir Ralph
What, you're still calling me SR? After I was doing my best to imitate one of our famous Civ3 critics? I demand to be called Coracle II from now on. :cute:
Wish granted... ;) I'll shorten it to CII

[Harovan]

Originally posted by hexagonian
Wish granted... ;) I'll shorten it to CII

Shoot, I knew I should have chosen Coracle IV. ;)

[The_Aussie_Lurker]

Oh, come on Sir Ralph....oops, sorry, Coracle II ;), even someone like me-who doesn't even HAVE the game-knows that you don't fight lions with warriors unless you absolutely HAVE to. Use Scouts, which get a bonus against animals. Also, there could have been any number of underlying terrain factors which led to your defeat. Now, if you lose a spearman or a swordsman to a lion THEN I would be pretty upset.

Oh and, as I have said before, if Yin simply says he LIKES/LOVES civ4, then that is ALL I need to hear, and so far his words have been music to my ears :)!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

[Grumbold]

Originally posted by Sir Ralph
I mean, I lost perfectly healthy, experienced men, armed with big clubs to some blown up pussycats?!??

;)

Clearly a mistake. The lions should have been glutted after eating a dozen men and allowed the rest of the warband to escape :p

[LaRusso]

LOL@sir ralph

anyway, i gotta say that yin liked civ3 back then (if i recall his early review) after playing one or two campaigns. let him breathe, he is in a loose-loose situation. ;)

[yin26]

Yes, I have learned my lesson about saying too much too early. :)

[Ninot]

Originally posted by yin26
Yes, I have learned my lesson about saying too much too early. :)

This also means that Yin hasn't found a cardboard recipee he wishes to try yet.

[Verenti]

OKay, The first thing that worried me about Civ4, Alva saying "Give it a chance, It will grow on you" (Paraphrasing, To lazy to quote)

I remember the Devs and Betas saying EXACTLY the same thing about Moo3. Then again, I said exactly the same thing about plenty of complex strategy games, Soooo....

[Solver]

Alva said it, I think, about the interface. What do you want, it's a new game, there are some things that you need some time to get adjusted to.

[Mao_Tse_Tongue]

I've got the game and played for 4 hours last night.

Civ fans will not be disapointed. They have introduced so many new systems with this game that it feels like a completely new experience.

The music is great... not overwhelming but adds a nice flavor to the different areas of the game. Sounds are terrific.

The graphics really do work. I was big time concerned about the switch to 3d using the Pirates engine (mostly because that game disapointed me and I didn't like the "look" of it). The ability to zoom seamlessly from a global view to a city or unit close-up really makes the world feel real and alive. The little sheep walking around and the "squish squish" noise that your units make when walking near a river... all that stuff adds up and you get sucked right in.

Religion is a great new system that I'm still futzing around with... 4 hours didn't even scratch the surface. I can envision whole strategies built around missionary spamming and religion rushes... it is very cool that they managed to introduce the concept in such a nice way.

The wonder movies are cool (build Oracle and Stonehenge last night).

The game pace is interesting. The first 15 or so turns seem to go at a Civ 3 pace. Lots of exploring and waiting for cities to grow and units to pop. Then all of a sudden everything picks up speed and before you know it you are up to Fudalism and in the middle ages.

I could go on and on, but I've got real work to do :)

I've played every Civ for way too many hours, and I'm really happy with this new version. Civ 3 was a disappointment to me (didn't really play much until C3C came out), so I was a bit skeptical heading into this purchase.

So far, so good.

[Stuie]

Originally posted by Mao_Tse_Tongue
Civ 3 was a disappointment to me (didn't really play much until C3C came out), so I was a bit skeptical heading into this purchase.

Yeah - Civ3 wasn't worth playing until the 1.17 patch or so, and even then it didn't really grab me. But when I first bought it, I played maybe two games and then put it away. It was... dull.

Civ4 appears to be way better - I'm only half way through my first game and I already have a mental list of things I want to try "next time".... and the time after that. So it looks like it will continue to entertain right out of the box...

[yin26]

Originally posted by Ninot


This also means that Yin hasn't found a cardboard recipee he wishes to try yet.

You know, funny thing. It was a bizarre moment: I opened the packaging on the Special Edition and said: "Hey, this outside slip cover isn't very thick at all, and there is not a lot of dark ink. Hmmm, I might survive this!"

Is that not strange?

[Ninot]

Originally posted by yin26


You know, funny thing. It was a bizarre moment: I opened the packaging on the Special Edition and said: "Hey, this outside slip cover isn't very thick at all, and there is not a lot of dark ink. Hmmm, I might survive this!"

Is that not strange?

The civ gods are smiling upon us all :)

.....

EXCEPT THE DAMN EBGAMES IN MONTREAL WHERE THEY DONT HAVE COPIES YET:rant:

[abenamer]

Full health tank?

Yes. Full health. There's nothing like watching a pikeman stick his pipe into the tank's turret and seeing the turret explode.

I'm glad you can fix the UI somewhat but it's annoying to me that when I click on the city I end up clicking on the units IN the city. Worse, when I see the list of units in the city popup on the left I assume I should be able to click on it but the list disappears because it only works on a mouseover event on the city. There should be a way to make that popup sticky so that I can click on a unit's description name instead of the icons that appear when the stack is selected. To me, the UI is just plain inconsistent -- you can't give people mouseover events but then deny them the ability to click inside the popup that shows. They incorporated an RTS interface and only half-incorporated a pseudo-Web browser interface.

[alva]

Have you tried the CIv3 UI? You can set it in the options menu, it sounds like that's more or less what you're lookng for. :)

I never had problems getting into a city, so I can't really tell what's going on. Have you tried looking for the "sweet" spot? (double-clicking on the flag takes you inside your capital btw, then you can go to the next city using the arrows (top-ish of the screen) or using IIRC left and right arrow keys.)

[LaRusso]

Originally posted by Stuie
I'm only half way through my first game and I already have a mental list of things I want to try "next time".... and the time after that.

:b:

[Imran Siddiqui]

Yes. Full health. There's nothing like watching a pikeman stick his pipe into the tank's turret and seeing the turret explode.

Didn't that happen in the last Indiana Jones movie, but with a rock? ;)

[Addled Platypus]

Originally posted by Nikolai
Yin liking Civ4 is a great sign.:b:


I had to read his review first,

agreed a good thing

[Mace]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui
Yes. Full health. There's nothing like watching a pikeman stick his pipe into the tank's turret and seeing the turret explode.

Didn't that happen in the last Indiana Jones movie, but with a rock? ;)

Didn't Rambo do it with a bow and arrow? Oh, wait, that was a helicopter gunship...

[Sarxis]

Yin, I seem to recall that part of the 'eating' was dependant on how satisfying the combat system is in cIV.

So how is it?

[Adm.Naismith]

Originally posted by Nikolai
Yin liking Civ4 is a great sign.:b:
Maybe a sign that someone else has stolen his Apolyton password... :cute: :D

[Imran Siddiqui]

Nah... remember he liked Civ3 for a few weeks before he morphed into Mr. Negative ;).

[Mace]

That's right...it's too early to tell...and re: ICS and cardboard, I think it's also too early to tell.

[yin26]

LOL! You guys crack me up.

As for combat, I don't have enough experience. I decided to give the tutorial a full try (for the review). No combat there. And Imran is right that I took a few weeks to get past the initial buzz, so I'm taking this more carefully. Here is a promise, though: Even if Civ 4 turns out to disappoint, I will not turn negative unless Firaxis abandons the project, which seems hard to imagine.

[yin26]

Originally posted by Mace
That's right...it's too early to tell...and re: ICS and cardboard, I think it's also too early to tell.

From my limited playing time, I think ICS in the very early game is hard to do, and this is great! I'll keep working at it, though. As for mid and late game, no idea yet. Like you say, too early.

[yang27]

let my dear yin play the game a few more times before we figure out his real impressions.;)

for me it seems that civ4 has incorporated some of the great features from alpha centauri and then some.:)

[The_Aussie_Lurker]

And I still say that Civ4 appears to be what Civ3 was always SUPPOSED to be-only on steroids!!! We are only left to wonder what might have been if Firaxis hadn't lost Brian Reynolds part-way through Civ3's development (the creator of SMAC)!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

[Sirian]

Brian got to make his own game his own way on (I believe) his own terms. The result is Rise of Nations. I have not played it, so I have no comment beyond that.

For that matter, I haven't played SMAC either!

I'm sure there were lots of SMAC influences on Civ4 (the Social Engineering just for starters) but -none- of these came through me because, again, I haven't played it. I have played a wide range of other games, though. :)


The interesting question now on the table, at least from my point of view, is where Civ4 can go from here. What might be doable in the first expansion? We can't turn back the clock on alternate realities, but there are real possibilities out there and still the chance to influence which ones are realized!


- Sirian

[The_Aussie_Lurker]

You are 100% correct, Sirrian. I for one hope you have a major role to play in the next expansion, because I know you will push hard for an even greater emphasis on the navy ;)! Things like extra naval units and promotions, additional in-game concepts that emphasise the roles of navies, and scenarios which focus on periods of history where navies were particularly important. Additionally, anything which expands on domestic and foreign politics (Civics, international relations, the UN) would also be welcome!
Oh, realise this is majorly O/T, so I will shut up now :cute:

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

[Chronus9]

You know, funny thing. It was a bizarre moment: I opened the packaging on the Special Edition and said: "Hey, this outside slip cover isn't very thick at all, and there is not a lot of dark ink. Hmmm, I might survive this!"
Yin - is your avatar a picture of you eating a cardboard box? Why are you in a bunny suit? (Halloween?) ;)

[CarnalCanaan]

**Keep in mind that this was played on the second-from-lowest strategy level**

My experience from the $1.05 worth of games I've played thus far is that ICS in the early game is more or less dead, if for no other reason than that the Settlers and Workers are quite expensive. Later, though, as your cities can produce at a high level, ICS shows a quasi-comeback since those units do not put a hit on your city population.

However, the system that puts the drag on growth (and thus ICS) is the income system. It is not necessarily easy to gain income in the early game - and thankfully, neither all that important. Later, the available size of your empire is determined by your income: mo' money, mo' cities. This means that if you wish to grow at your neighbor's expense you must have not only the military capacity but also the economic capacity.

Put another way, opposed to previous Civs, conquest will slow down your rate of technological advancement, generally, rather than facilitate it.

To me, THIS was the thing I was waiting for which I felt would kill ICS. Not a retooled algorithm for corruption, but a dynamic that would mean trading military success for scientific success.

[Lou Wigman]

This flies in the face of the "real world" where war has generally meant a boost for scientific and technological advancement.

[Metaliturtle]

Originally posted by Lou Wigman
This flies in the face of the "real world" where war has generally meant a boost for scientific and technological advancement.

Yet in the "real world" nobody decides to go to war to increase scientific and technological advancement, so it can't be exploited.

[yin26]

Originally posted by Chronus9

Yin - is your avatar a picture of you eating a cardboard box? Why are you in a bunny suit? (Halloween?) ;)

LOL. Well, it's carrot flavor cardboard, of course!

[yin26]

Some ICS feedback so far:

Your gold runs paper thin in the early game, and 42 gold from a goody hut suddenly makes you dance around the living room. Thus, as Solver's review pointed out, even a city maintenance of 1 or 2 gold begins to have significant meaning. I was fortunate enough to setup a silver mine and built roads to it, etc., which has helped.

So, as of now, still early game, I have 4 cities. The 4th city put my gold in a -1 per turn, and I left it that way for a long while (again, the goody huts were key). But as I plan now for the 5th and possibly 6th city, I have had to sacrifice 10% research to stay in the positive. This means, in effect, that I will be running negative again at a -10% research penalty against the AI.

Of course, I am on Noble setting, which means the AI has no bonuses. So in that sense, the situation about sort of means I would be upping my difficulty (for the early game at least). In other words, this is fun again!

Finally, the biggest piece of this puzzle will be how well the AI pushes its tech and gold advantage. But with defense given a boost this time around, and with at least one warrior and one archer in each city already (usually with lots of promotions from killing attacking barbarians), it would take the AI some concerted work against me to put the hurt on. For the moment, then, I'm turtling in order to pump out the maximum number of cities I can possibly sustain in hopes of having a strong mid to late game.

[aspvv]

Originally posted by Lou Wigman
This flies in the face of the "real world" where war has generally meant a boost for scientific and technological advancement.

I do not think this statement is accurate. In the real world the real war does not provide a boost to anything, if anything it slows things down because the resources have to be allocated to war efforts. WWI and WWII are good examples.
The only way it might appear that the war boost advancement is because there is greater emphasis on war related technologies and greater budget for them. That is consistent with the game, when the war is expected one tends to concentrate on military technologies.
The only way a war contributes to tech advancement in real world is as opportunity to test all of the military technologies already in place and weed out the bad ones.
:D

[Tventano]

After the tutorial I started a "noble" standard continents map (all default). Now after 5 hours playing, I killed the japanese and it is 1260 AD. Btw tehy just build a settler during the war, really smart of them ;)
The music is great. But it will take some time before I know all the tricks with the keyboard and how I want all the UI settings.
Strategy for improvements and buildings is still lacking for me. Why combined arms are useful I now experienced, but still do not know how to see quickly what attacker would be the most successful. When I have three stacks next to a city I want to capture the city with the less possible losses. This is quite complicated because you have to recognize all icons.

So the game is really addictive, but it will take some time before I can play at a decent level. Probably cannot finish this evening, thus wil continue tomorrow.

[CarnalCanaan]

Originally posted by aspvv


I do not think this statement is accurate. In the real world the real war does not provide a boost to anything, if anything it slows things down because the resources have to be allocated to war efforts. WWI and WWII are good examples.




I'd agree with this. Prolonged war can cause a society to rearrange its priorities, making war seem like a boost. Although WWII gave us jet propulsion and nuclear power, it also held the civil rights movement back and may have postponed environmentalism.

[Sirian]

No word from Yin in the last few hours. Was he busy with family and other normal activity? Bored with Civ4 already and on to something else? Or was he so consumed with One More Turn that he's still playing right now and too preoccupied to post an update? :naughty:

- Sirian

[alva]

He has very silent hasn't he.

That's either very good news or very,very bad...

[DramaticActorVoiceOver]
Next week on Poly!!!

Will Yin bite back at Sid and once and for kil the evil foe??
Will he instead start biting in the dreaded box of doom??

Be sure to turn in!!!
[/]

[yin26]

Well, here's a look at what has already been reported about the stability of relationships. I'm at 1320 A.D.:

<img src=http://apolyton.net/upload/view.php?file=1807_diplo.jpg>

[yin26]

And here is my city status so far:

<img src=http://apolyton.net/upload/view.php?file=1807_1320.jpg>

You'll see that the 5th and 6th cities were only just added and that my treasury is currently -1 / turn. This will be fixed soon via a Great Person adding gold, but there is this delicate balance against expansion too fast.

[yin26]

And this just popped up :):

<img src=http://apolyton.net/upload/view.php?file=1807_ranking.jpg>

[yin26]

Interesting note on what happens as you conquer (and hold) enemy cities. After taking this city (which, by the way, was a rather dull cakewalk), my treasury took a hit:

<img src=http://apolyton.net/upload/view.php?file=1807_tookcity.jpg>

As you can see here, city maintenance is now at 12 a turn. I have already started building improvements to lessen this cost, but you can see that the designers are pushing hard to limit how fast you can hold a growing number of cities:

<img src=http://apolyton.net/upload/view.php?file=1807_citymaint.jpg>

[yin26]

By the way, so as not to make this look too bleak, you can set a city to create wealth. For example, by doing this with my largest city (Beijing), my treasury jumps to +7 / turn (I also just got another Great Person, who added +3 before that).

So there is a tradeoff here as Beijing now cannot produce anything else.

[yin26]

Here is the wealth standing:

<img src=http://apolyton.net/upload/view.php?file=1807_wealth.jpg>

I should say that almost 4 hours in to the game, the AI has posed absolutely NO THREAT to me. Just to liven things up, I took that city above, and the AI asked for peace a few turns later. Needless to say this worries me a bit on the Noble level, and I know you can customize the game for aggressive AI. Anyway, I won't say more on this until I see how the game unfolds.

[yin26]

To give a sense of how quickly things can shift in the game, after a few wonders, Great Persons, and other improvements, my treasury is back up to +8 / turn WITHOUT putting Beijing on wealth-making. To this extent, Civ 4 is doing something I had hoped it would: Making a kind of mini-game of running your own empire apart from whatever the AI is doing. This aspect seems promising.

[The_Aussie_Lurker]

I should say that almost 4 hours in to the game, the AI has posed absolutely NO THREAT to me. Just to liven things up, I took that city above, and the AI asked for peace a few turns later. Needless to say this worries me a bit on the Noble level

I have to say, Yin, that it has me mildly concerned too. In fact, it is probably the ONLY piece of info I have heard since the games release that has me a little nervous. Though I am not normally a warmonger, I do like some of the AI civs to be more of a genuine threat to me at various points in the game (though the Barbs are sounding VERY nasty indeed). I wonder if this is just a one-off experience? Perhaps other people could let us know if they have experienced 'tough as nails' AI opponents who REALLY put them through their paces?

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

[yin26]

Two things that might make this sound a bit better: I am in the corner of the map, and my left flank is pretty well protected by mountains. However, the AI to my north just wimped out by losing his city to me and then asking for peace. It's possible he is setting a trap. ;) Also, there is still that aggressive AI setting to be tried next game!

Also, here's something interesting...I am the smallest landmass on the map (again, in part, for being stuck in the corner with lots of mountains holding me in). Kind of cool, though, that land mass does not necessarily determine your other power stats:

<img src=http://apolyton.net/upload/view.php?file=1807_empiresize.jpg>

[alva]

I will say that low difficulty level ( which, let's face it, noble is) games, do tend or at least can be...well...a bit pale. It all really starts kicking in, once higher up the ladder.

I had more written up but decided not to post it, I shouldn't spoil it all, So I'll let you wonder and ponder and worry over it all by yourselves. ;)

[Imran Siddiqui]

Hey Yin! Good stuff so far. I do think that you have to go over 'Noble' for a more aggressive enemy (so I've heard).

Btw, just want to let you know, the Civ4-Help forum has some people that just put you to shame ;). One guy, who I'm arguing against, just said it was 'unprofessional' for Firaxis not to have an official forums, and even though the Poly and CFC have been around for like 7 years, it was unfair for the fansite owners and the players to be sent here (never mind that the support option on the website recommended email or calling.. he won't email because he knows they won't answer :lol: ). You are looking better daily ;).

[Solver]

The AI aggressiveness is indeed an interesting thing.

Generally, it will not attack you without a reason. Then there's the question of personalities - Gandhi or Catherine will only attack with a very good reason, although Montezuma needs less reason to attack. There's the matter of militaries, if the AI knows it can't expect to take a city easily, it will be less likely to declare. Finally, there's the difficulty level, even on Prince the AIs are more willing to declare.

If you want, you can use the Aggressive AI setting which will make them much more likely to declare war.

Under the appropriate circumstances, even on Noble, the AI can be quite ruthless. Appropriate circumstances = good land to fight for, a couple of aggressive personalities thrown in, religious differences...

[yin26]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui
Hey Yin! Good stuff so far. I do think that you have to go over 'Noble' for a more aggressive enemy (so I've heard).

Btw, just want to let you know, the Civ4-Help forum has some people that just put you to shame ;). One guy, who I'm arguing against, just said it was 'unprofessional' for Firaxis not to have an official forums, and even though the Poly and CFC have been around for like 7 years, it was unfair for the fansite owners and the players to be sent here (never mind that the support option on the website recommended email or calling.. he won't email because he knows they won't answer :lol: ). You are looking better daily ;).

Great! Not sure what I'll do with my Negativity Crown, though. Think that guy wants it? :)

[yin26]

Originally posted by Solver
The AI aggressiveness is indeed an interesting thing.

I just realized (remember) that the game ends at 2050, and I've been too passive. My score now is fourth overall, and I don't think I can catch up from here. One civ expanded really well in the center of the map, and with no AI wars going on (none that I could tell, anyway), it seems like inertia took over for that civ.

So I decided to go down fighting. Interestingly enough, that same civ that rolled over for peace, is pushing back harder this time. Indeed, he is pillaging like crazy! That I really love, Solver, as you had mentioned before.

A big lesson for me this time is that while you can stay in the game and be competitive with fewer cities, you can't let geography and cooperative (or just mellow) AIs lull you into to playing sandbox Civ. While I think losing on score is a bit dull, I know for the next game how to avoid that scenario...I hope! ;)\

Anyway, 85 turns left. Have to see how this war and the other AIs go to the end.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Originally posted by yin26
Great! Not sure what I'll do with my Negativity Crown, though. Think that guy wants it? :)

:) He may complain that the Negativity Crown doesn't look good enough on him ;).

A big lesson for me this time is that while you can stay in the game and be competitive with fewer cities, you can't let geography and cooperative (or just mellow) AIs lull you into to playing sandbox Civ. While I think losing on score is a bit dull, I know for the next game how to avoid that scenario...I hope!

Very nice!! If you just hang out, you can survive, but you won't win :b:.

[yin26]

Oh no! LOL!

<img src=http://apolyton.net/upload/view.php?file=1807_ohno.jpg>

Well, you can see this guy likes mounted units...and I have limited riflemen! Also, those units are going around wiping out tile improvements, which is really, really cool. Sometimes, though, they still attack a city for no real good reason and lose a unit, but that seems to be the exception. Or, anyway, the war of attrition is definitely working in his favor.

I'm really glad to see this develop. I did just basic military build up and only expanded when it was relatively easy to do so. A good AI should punish me for that kind of play. Of course, I had to go out of my way to start a war with this AI, but on Noble setting that probably makes sense. Many gamers like to have almost total control over the flow of things, and I'd say that Noble has presented that possibility. I'll just close this game out for everbody. Few more turns should do it.

[Solver]

I just realized (remember) that the game ends at 2050, and I've been too passive. My score now is fourth overall, and I don't think I can catch up from here. One civ expanded really well in the center of the map, and with no AI wars going on (none that I could tell, anyway), it seems like inertia took over for that civ.

Heh yes you can forget about that sometimes. I play with the 2050 AD limit off though (I'm glad I got this feature) - I want the game to continue until a real victory condition is met. Usually happens before 2050 anyway, but it's kind of disappointing if the game ends with a sscore victory.

That AI attack you have there is interesting, but not the best I've seen. Them pillaging is normal indeed, but I would have also expected Alexander to bring at least some Grenadiers. Then again, maybe they're coming.

[yin26]

Actually, that is Persia coming at me. Just wanted to show people what pillaged landscape looks like. This area of mine USED to be filled with all kinds of improvements (see previous screen shot above):

<img src=http://apolyton.net/upload/view.php?file=1807_pillaged.jpg>

It's easy to see how much more powerful this kind of AI approach is than simply sending in AI units to be slaughtered. This is a very nice point in my play so far!

Yes, I will disable the 2050 victory, though I think I deserved to lose this game in any event. And I'll post a shot in a moment about how well the AI in the middle expanded.

[yin26]

Look at India (pink) -- 18 cities! (one you can't really see one just by my borders...he just kept expanding!) I think that center location helped (with passive neighbors), but it's great to see the AI doing this.

<img src=http://apolyton.net/upload/view.php?file=1807_india.jpg>

[yin26]

Well, that AI for some odd reason offered me peace even though he was doing just fine pillaging. I switched to lots of riflemen, though, and he was starting to take a beating. So I guess that makes sense. Probably not much different from what a human player would do.

One note: Highlands map is definitely the way to go if you want to give the AI the best shot at you. There are many lanes of attack, no need for navies and boarding ships, etc.

I also think it was interesting that my corner position, which afforded me a lot of safety in the early to mid game, also set up difficulties for me grabbing land. A very nice trade off, though I really want a wrap around option. Does it exist?

First game: Civ 4 - 1 Yin - 0 Again, I had to prod the AI response, but it did finally come and was pretty competent. Though using so many of one type of unit allowed me to counter after a few turns, and the AI really should have kept pressing its advantage rather than offering peace. But like I said, I've seen human players do this a hundred times because your attack starts to stall, you see the enemy finally getting counters in place, and you decide it's best to leave with your army still in tact. Usually, though, pressing forward can be the difference in truly taking somebody out of the game or not.

Uneventful until the end. Some interesting game mechanics. Definite promise.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Wow... that really looks good, Yin. The AI seems most definitely improved!

[Solver]

Yin, a tip: to take a better shot of the minimap, press F5 for the military advisor and take a screen of its map.

Cyrus probably didn't press forward that much because he saw you getting counters and didn't have enough of a motivation. In fact, this was his idea, probably.

The AI in Civ4 recognizes different kinds of wars - total wars, limited wars, dogpile wars... given that Cyrus sent in a good number of mounted units, I would be pretty sure that the AI decided there to fight a limited war. The goal was to weaken Yin's infrastructure by pillaging (the AI succeeded there) without taking too many losses or making economic sacrifices - which is why Cyrus bargained for peace when Yin an appropriate counter force. Had Yin refused peace, Cyrus might have gone on an all-out assault, or might have just some more pillaging and sued for peace again later.

Other than Higlands, there are some more good map types for the AI. Lakes comes to mind. It's also a land map, but will, in fact, not block possible advance routes by mountains, maybe making it easier for the AI. This all shouldn't be taken to mean that AI is pathetic at water maps - it isn't, but if of course has an easier time on land maps, because fighting there IS easier.

[LaRusso]

noble seems to be the level where one can win even in initial game. it is good to see, though, that the mechanics, and not bells and whistles, is what people seem to like. no two games alike, cunnig, or so it seems, AI
go on yin, random map, go for it:)

[yin26]

Solver: Is there a way to get a random map? Anyway, following LaRussuo's request, I am doing everything as random as I can on this next game, though the map itself remains Highlands. Turned off both timed and space victories. We're gonna settle this thing on Earth if it takes us, well, thousands of years!

<img src=http://apolyton.net/upload/view.php?file=1807_custom.jpg>

By the way, I've never done a random era start. This could be really interesting.

[Atahualpa]

I had the AI attack me with a clever organized stack of 1 catapult, 1 axeman and some mounted units. Strangely however, when the catapult attacked me, not my keshik (+50% vs catapults) but that swordsman decided to defend. Shouldn't it rather be the horseman?

In another game however the AI was pretty weak and did little to turn against me. His cities were well defended though.

Due to wars being much more complicated now, I have fought very little of them though.

[yin26]

Yes, figuring out the new AI is fun. Speaking of, I forgot to mention in my last screenshot that the AI level was put up a level to Prince. Together with the aggressive AI option, this could be interesting.

[yin26]

Interesting start. Small map. Just 3 players. I have already scouted the whole map!

<img src=http://apolyton.net/upload/view.php?file=1807_3player.jpg>

[hexagonian]

I am really struck by the AI's abilities to wage a pillage war on a large scale. This is very promising because the war of attrition does not merely have to be army-vs-army or straight city conquest.

To see the AI use tactics that usually were the domain of players, well...color me impressed - very impressed indeed. There really appears to be some nuanced and subtle gameplay elements that, even if not totally balanced, should be tweakable.

I'm waiting for the report on straight battle tactics.

I'm becoming more and more of a convert.

[Solver]

Yin: no way for a random map script that I know of. Continents is the most random script itself, per se.

BTW, I certainly enjoy regular games with Ancient start more, you really should play with those around first to get a feel for the early game.

Anyway, this time around, you're more screwed. I see you started with Montezuma as your closest neighbour, which is never a good thing. The guy's aggressive like a madman, if you're close to him, there WILL be a war.

Knowing nothing else, I'd say that the game depends on Roosevelt. If you can get him on your side, you can make it, if Roosevelt sides with Montezuma, you're screwed.

[Solver]

I am really struck by the AI's abilities to wage a pillage war on a large scale. This is very promising because the war of attrition does not merely have to be army-vs-army or straight city conquest.

To see the AI use tactics that usually were the domain of players, well...color me impressed - very impressed indeed. There really appears to be some nuanced and subtle gameplay elements that, even if not totally balanced, should be tweakable.

I'm waiting for the report on straight battle tactics.

I'm becoming more and more of a convert.

I couldn't be more glad to hear this :b: :b:. Plus, I hope that Firaxis keeps up with the tradition of further improving the AI in patches.

[yin26]

Montezuma has attacked already, which is great! It seems clear the aggressive AI setting works. As Solver noted, though, in a 3-way free-for-all that Montezuma and Roosevelt need only to ally to see my sure destruction. Love it! :)

[Solver]

Even without the aggressive AI setting he would have attacked probably, he's a hard guy to deal with :).

This is probably going to be a short game, if I may suggest the next game: Pangaea, large map (more civs really increases the dynamics), Prince, aggressive AI off (so you can gauge their normal behaviour).

[yin26]

LOL! Man, got worked over. It was fun to see. Montezuma first came in with a mounted-only attack, so, knowing this from last game, I had lots of spearmen ready. I beat back his first wave quite well and was ready to feel proud of myself.

He then threw probably 12 units at me, this time a lot more mixed. Interestingly, mainly, this time, archers + mounted archers. The archers, of course, were the perfect counter to my spearmen. In short order, I lost two cities and he offered peace (not quite sure why the AI does this). But it's clear it's over, and I will now try Solver's settings. :)

Civ 4 - 2 : Yin - 0 :)

[Solver]

I assume Montezuma didn't have any metals, or he would have brought Axemen instead of Archers. Nice to see that he also did well under such circumstances.

The AI is sometimes a bit too willing to offer peace, maybe. Then again, it was confident you're dead.

So, now that you experienced it, got any comments on the combat yet :)?

[yin26]

Well, the most important thing is that I'm taking a beating! Love it. But I am still baffled at the decision not to have stacked combat. I suppose at the heart of it, the 1 v 1 way things play out isn't so far off from what happens in stacked combat when you drop down to the battlefield view. And HoMM has really spoiled me on how stacked unit interaction can become something really interesting in combat.

So while I'm most interested in the result on this one and less on the process, I'm curious, Solver, if you, too, don't think more could be done to spice up the feel of combat? I should say, though, that the promotion system is pure genius. Yes, let me highlight this. It adds a really fun aspect to the game!

Thus, I would say that I need more time with the combat system to understand it better and to put the larger pieces of the puzzle in place. Mostly, though, I'm feeling far more positive than not.

What is your view of combat?

[Solver]

I love the combat system. It was yet another thing that I was skeptical before joining the beta team and excited after. Before: "Oh no, one vs. one unit combat again, although maybe not that boring this time". After: "Damn I love this combat system, it's actually balanced and exciting!".

I've played a fair number of games by now, and still haven't tried many of the promotion combinations. Only recently I discovered the joys of Flanking II + Mobility mounted units, these things can zoom across any terrain, attack and retreat.

The promotion system is genius, and it's very well visible in how different the same unit type becomes by promotions. A Swordsman that is Combat I - Cover - City Raider I is an awesome unit to take cities with, while a Combat I - Medic I - Shock Swordsman is a good all-round unit that has a decent chance vs. its direct counter.

The Civ4 combat isn't very far off from stacked combat indeed. After all, you use stacks of units with mixed arms, there are advantages to ranged units (first strikes), there is collateral damage... the overall system is good and indeed looks like it even is fairly realistic.

I'm excited :D.

[Jon Shafer]

Originally posted by Atahualpa
I had the AI attack me with a clever organized stack of 1 catapult, 1 axeman and some mounted units. Strangely however, when the catapult attacked me, not my keshik (+50% vs catapults) but that swordsman decided to defend. Shouldn't it rather be the horseman?
Mounted units only get their bonus against siege when attacking, and not when defending.

[dannyevilcat]

Originally posted by yin26
In short order, I lost two cities and he offered peace (not quite sure why the AI does this).

Perhaps he's expanded as much as he can afford, due to maintenance?

[yin26]

Yes, that's a point. He could have, though, razed my other cities and kill me entirely!

[Sirian]

Check out the Map Guide for more info on maps.

The only "land heavy" maps that have world wrap are Lakes (X-wrap) and Fantasy Realm (X and Y! -- but not yet released.)

The closest you can get to "random" map script selection is to play Tilted Axis or Ice Age and stick with "Random" landmass sizes. You can get anything from a Pangaea to Tiny Islands.


Yin! Glad to see you enjoying yourself. I can -so- much relate to "Wow, I'm LOSING, this is FUN!" :lol: Makes it genuinely satisfying when the winning begins. :)


- Sirian

[yin26]

Thanks for the map tips, Sirian. I expect great maps from you!:)

One last round of comments before going to bed: Today, Saturday, was the first full day I could give to Civ 4, and it's been compelling. I'm finally settling in to a strategy having tried some things in the previous games mentioned, and this time I'm paying a lot more attention to diplomacy.

Now, it's too early for me to say, but it really does seem as if the AI's not only have persistent memory but also apply diplomatic pressure in surprisingly good and consistent ways. I found myself giving up techs and making deals to just keep strategic friends, mainly because I learned how challenging it is to try to pull off a militaristic and cultural build up at the same time. That is, I don't have a large standing military, and I can't afford a war with neighbors...and I have seen that the AI *will* come after you if you have too many grievances between each other.

I mean, I just love that in the diplo summary with an AI you get a red negative sentence for "You did not help us in war-time." Cool! Add in to this mix the issue of different or shared religion AND the ability to try to convert your neighbors so that you DO share the same religion, and you have an element of strategy that I have not seen in diplomacy to this degree.

Now, this is still the first impressions thread, and maybe there are huge flaws in all this I have not yet to see. But I can certainly say that what Firaxis is trying to do here is significant and, so far, a whole lot of fun. Sure, it's still the honeymoon phase. Need more playing time. :)

[Imran Siddiqui]

WOOOOO!! I got the game today and played a bunch (tutorial and a regular game). Btw, THESE are my specs:

1.7 Ghtz PIV
512 MB Ram
32 MB VRam, GeForce4 440 Go

And the game is running nicely :). Though at the end of the latest game things started slowwwwing down a lot. Though when I exited, I found a bit of a problem with my new 'unsigned' drivers from Laptop2go. I'm hoping it is because I installed Direct X 9.0(c) after I installed the drivers. If not, small price to pay to keep installing them after 3-4 hours of gameplay (like a clock ;)). I can only hope it wasn't slowing down because of all the cities and units (I don't think it was :scared: ).

Anyway, I'm really enjoying it. Playing it on a SUPER easy level, but I'm feeling things out. Religion seems like an interesting factor, and diplomacy seems much better. Tokogawa is pissed because of my Open Borders with Egypt, which is a nice touch.

Good fun... hope there aren't many more slooowdowns, maybe reinstalling the unsigned drivers will make it good.

[Sirian]

"Need more playing time." - Woohoo! Won't argue that. :cool:

For me, it's not exactly "one more turn". I don't say that to myself. I say, "A couple of more turns." I'll just play a couple more turns, until I finish this wonder (to see if I will get it!) I will just play a couple more turns (to explore the rest of this island I found.) A couple more turns for this, a couple more turns for that, next thing you six hours have gone by. :eek:

:lol:


- Sirian

[asleepathewheel]

That terra map is awesome Sirian. Rave reviews for that one. Great job :b:

[Addled Platypus]

man those screen prints from the game are so good, I even tried hitting exit on the screenie :blush:. ..and it did'nt work :idiot:

great reports yin26

[The_Aussie_Lurker]

Oh, thank goodness I am not the ONLY person who does that, Platypus Rex-thought I was getting a bit wierd there ;)!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

[Solver]

I like the sounds of it, Yin :). Glad to see your first impression is good, that means quite a lot.

BTW, an elaboration on why a Large map has more interesting game dynamics. Standard map is you + 6 AIs. That means that everyone can, under the right condition, found a religion, and that there are usually two blocs, not more. On Large maps, it's you + 9 AIs - ten civs, so at least three end up without a religion of their own (and usually someone gets to found two religions), and the potential for blocs is increased. On a Large map, you can sometimes see three distinct blocs being formed, which does, IMO, make the game more interesting.

[Chronus9]

I'm sorry but I'm a bit slow. From what I gather, there are no true random maps and the maps do not continuously scroll from east to west? Or are you only talking about a particular set of maps that come with the game?

man those screen prints from the game are so good, I even tried hitting exit on the screenie . ..and it did'nt work
:lol:

I must say, the maps, graphics and such look absolutely gorgeous!

[LaRusso]

still waiting for the game. apparently it was sold out in couple of manhattan eb game stores my friend was looking at. he had to come back, so i am now waiting for another friend of mine to bring them over from france in a week time.
these reviews are all that keeps me from going insane :)
so...there are no truly random maps where you just choose size and everything else get randomized (landmass, archipelago/pangea, age, humidity)? why no such option?
hope i am not sounding like a whiner, just kind of a habit...i usually played on normal maps with everything randomized....

[Addled Platypus]

Originally posted by LaRusso

so...there are no truly random maps where you just choose size and everything else get randomized (landmass, archipelago/pangea, age, humidity)? why no such option?
hope i am not sounding like a whiner, just kind of a habit...i usually played on normal maps with everything randomized....

Wait till you play, you will see

[Atahualpa]

Originally posted by Trip
Mounted units only get their bonus against siege when attacking, and not when defending.

Okay that explains it, thx!

[Arrian]

I wanted to chime in about the aggressiveness of the AI on "noble" level:

In my third game (second on noble), I found myself on a mid-sized continent with one neighbor - France (Nappy). Given that there were three other similarly-sized continents (and one had only 1 civ on it), I felt the need to grab all that I could. So my first city was placed close to Paris and there was immediate culture border battle (as opposed to a shooting war). The shooting war, however, followed directly, and Napolean made me pay for running a minimal military.

I was able to dig myself out of it b/c my empire was larger & more productive, but I did lose St. Petersburg for quite a few turns and I took pretty heavy casualties in reclaiming that city & taking one more. I eventually wiped France out (easily) later with Knights/Cats/Macemen.

So my strategy of hemming in my neighbor triggered the intelligent response - he hit me, and hit me pretty hard. It seriously screwed up my peaceful building.

Now it's 1938. I've finally gone to war again, this time across the straight to my north against the Greeks (crushed 'em with Tanks/Arty/Cossacks vs. Rifles). I'm the biggest, most productive, and I'm leading in score by a wide margin. But I have a major problem: Bismark. He's the solid #2 in those categories, but he's got a 3-tech lead on me in the space race and has built a slew of components. I doubt I can catch him. Further, b/c he's ahead in tech, he's got mech infantry and I don't. Plus, my army is currently engaged in mopping up Greece. I'm gonna lose! :eek:

I should have identified him as the major threat earlier. We were best buds, though! Really good relations w/him, whereas the others were mostly cautious or annoyed. My one other good friend was weak, so it was nice to have the #2 civ pleased with me. The problem began when he beat me to a wonder (the one that triggers a free golden age)... then I started getting beat to all sorts of wonders by the AI (not just by the Germans). I think his late-game GA catapulted him in front of me, and I also think he may have gone more for commerce than I did... I have a solid production advantage, but it's not enough to save me. Plus, IIRC, Bizzy gets a discount wonder building (industrious).

In short, I'm bigger and (theoretically) stronger, but he's gonna kick my ass. That's a really good thing.

-Arrian

p.s. I went out of my way to spread around my two religions, but I can't really say it did all that much for me. I wonder if it was worth it.

[aspvv]

Here is what I noticed on about combat. I lost a well defending city to an AI. Very impressive. I had bunch of infantry, some SAM, and a few Mech. Infantry inside a city. The AI hit it with six canons first, that collateral damage hurts LOL. And the finished up with ground units. Not sure how to counter this yet. Any ideas?

[Solver]

Defending cities in Civ4 is easy vs. an insufficient force. Vs. a sufficient force, it's really hard. You can try to have a couple of siege units nearby to hit the attacking stack with them first.

How did the AI use its cannons vs. you. Did it bombard city defenses, or attack the city directly at once?

[Kuciwalker]

I am incredibly psyched about getting this game.

[Mace]

Originally posted by yin26
So I decided to go down fighting. Interestingly enough, that same civ that rolled over for peace, is pushing back harder this time. Indeed, he is pillaging like crazy!

I have found SOME AI's to be pretty good on Noble level.
Peter the Great (Russia) gave me some tough little wars.

[aspvv]

Originally posted by Solver
Defending cities in Civ4 is easy vs. an insufficient force. Vs. a sufficient force, it's really hard. You can try to have a couple of siege units nearby to hit the attacking stack with them first.

How did the AI use its cannons vs. you. Did it bombard city defenses, or attack the city directly at once?

Some Bombardment, but mainly straight attack with a follow up by a conventional fighters, Which is exactly the way I usually do it LOL

[Solver]

Some Bombardment, but mainly straight attack with a follow up by a conventional fighters, Which is exactly the way I usually do it LOL

Heh... essentially, the best way is to bombard city defenses down to 0% and wait with the rest of the units while it's done, then maybe attak directly with Cannons (if needed), then the rest.

[aspvv]

Yep, it was rather late in the game, so I did not care,
But earlier in the same game I was fighting the Mongols on the land, when the brought a good size stack with siege weapons across the bay, by sea, and threatened one of my best sites, I was so out of position that I had to ask for piece, Since I was wining they agreed.

LOL this move saved the Mongols since I would have wiped them out otherwise. As it turned out I got distracted with France and did not attack them again until 2035.
:cool:

[Mace]

Originally posted by Solver
Some Bombardment, but mainly straight attack with a follow up by a conventional fighters, Which is exactly the way I usually do it LOL

Heh... essentially, the best way is to bombard city defenses down to 0% and wait with the rest of the units while it's done, then maybe attak directly with Cannons (if needed), then the rest.

Wait a minute. Am I missing some important "Bombard" feature of the artillery-class units?

I thought you had to just attack as you would with an axeman or Knight...i.e. move the cannon straight in??

[aspvv]

When you move your artillery units next to a city with a defense bonus (for example 60%) watch for a red target button in the unit action box. Push it the arty will bombard without engaging the defenders.

[MxM]

Just to make it clear. There are two ways for artillery to attack a city. The first is a normal way, where the artillery makes collateral damage (I believe even if it looses). The second is the "bombard" feature. It does not kill artillery nor does any damage to the units in the city. But it does reduce the city defense. If you have enough artillery, you can reduce the city defense to 0, and then attack in normal way.

[Harovan]

Smart AI move discovered! ;)

In my just finished game I (Gandhi) was alone with Japan on a continent. I had shafted Japan in the Ancient age with some border management, cutting him from the juicier land and leaving him only with some plains and tundra. May be as a result of this, may be for whatever reason, Tokugawa never agreed to any deal with me, no technologies, no resources and not even open borders, even though I tried to contact him many times throughout the game. Since he was not exactly a threat and his land not much desirable, I left him alone.

South of mine was a close continent of four. Close, because it did not take ships for contact, we met by expanding cultural borders. Elisabeth to the left, Montezuma in the middle and Washington (N) and Bismarck (S) to the right. I had cultivated Bismarck as ally (pleased to friendly) and kept good relations with Elizabeth as well. I managed to get Washington and Montezuma cautious to pleased, even though both pestered me with demands not to trade with the other of them. Montezuma had attacked Washington in the early medieval age and even captured 2 cities (yes, the AI can capture cities).

So much for the situation. In the industrial age, Montezuma attacked Elizabeth. She asked me to help her, which I declined. She did a good research and always was 2-3 advances ahead of me, so I didn't mind that Monte pillaged the hell out of her (I kept an explorer there as war correspondent). I even helped Monte by gifting him some key technologies and delivering him iron for a pittance. This kept him happy, even though I declined his desire to give him military help as well.

After about 20 turns of happy pillaging, during which I managed to get even in research, Bismarck all of a sudden attacked Montezuma from behind. 2 turns later he asked for help and this time I had to accept. I landed a medium sized expedition force, almost all I had, and took a beachhead. In my homeland remained only a small emergency force of 8 cavalries, distributed in groups of 2. Three of them in the south in case if Monte lands pillagers (which he never did) and only 2 in the north at Tokugawas border. Since he was quiet during the whole game I didn't expect him to attack.

I was wrong. Soon as my expedition force had captured one of Montezumas cities and got some mauling too in response, Tokugawa declared war and attacked full steam from the north. I was shocked and awed ;). I mean, he did not stand a chance as he was too far behind; he seemed not to have much traded with the other tribes either. But his timing was remarkable. He hit me exactly in the moment when I was weak. :b:

Not that he would have harmed me too much, he just pillaged some roads, an oil well and some food and luxury resources, which net me some unhealthiness and striking citizens, however. But he managed to achieve, that I had to divert nearly all my production to fend off his pinpricks over all the length of our mutual border. God bless the limited RR movement, it would have been boring otherwise! :b: In result of this, my offensive in Aztec territory faltered, I had to withdraw in the captured city and make peace. Not before I made Monte making peace with Bismarck, so I could remain a reliable ally. Which cost me some techs, but oh well. I love that "Make peace with" feature, it's great!

The only downside I encountered was, that I found out, that Tokugawa irrigated his only ivory source instead of building a camp. Farming it doesn't get him the resource for War Elephants. He could have attacked me with them in the ancient age, when I still was expanding and had no significant military. The Civ3 AI would have most likely done so.

[Solver]

Most certainly not a coincidence, this AI does do that sometimes, strike when you're weak :b:.

[Arrian]

Too bad about the ivory thing, though. War Elephants might have saved Toku's bacon.

-Arrian

[Solver]

Yes, that's weird. Then again, maybe the Ivory was Camped at some point, but got farmed now, with Tokugawa realizing that Elephans aren't a load of help vs. a modern civ.

[Harovan]

He actually had one War Elephant sitting in one of his cities. So either he re-improved the tile (which I have my doubts for) or he traded for it from another AI civ. He definitely was not at war with anyone but me (which led to his extinction), so the tile was not pillaged in order to re-improve it.

[Harovan]

Another theory might be, that he farmed it when he did not have Hunting yet. IIRC Japan starts with Wheel and Fishing, so this theory makes sense.

[alva]

Could it be that he reimproved it after ivory got absolete and that farming was more usefull to him?

[Harovan]

I don't know the cIV AI too well yet. In Civ3 the AI would never reimprove a tile, ever. Maybe in cIV it does. I will keep an eye on it.

By the way, I fell in love with an absolutely fun setup. Highlands map with dense, clustered mountains, large lakes. Playing as Mongolia of course. Boy that is fun! A labyrinth of valleys interrupted by large impassable mountain ranges. Guerilla warfare at its finest! Try to find Bin Laden in Tora Bora! Should make up for a fun PBEM or MP scenario too.

Now if I could only get X and Y wrapping on in this script (it's off by default)! If you're in a corner, you have a too strong strategical position, you don't need to watch your back. But in a toroidal map there is no corner.

Come on Sirian, can we get this please? Or tell us how to mod it.

[Nikolai]

Can't you use the Python map making program that was released the other day?:)

[Jon Shafer]

Sir Ralph:

Was the AI's city near the ivory low on food? The AI will often farm plots with resources if it needs food badly. Which might explain why you saw that situation.

[Harovan]

Yes it was low on food, most of its land was plains. However having a strategical resource hooked up should be weighted higher than being able to feed half a pop point more.

[Soren Johnson]

I am guessing that Ivory had gone obsolete for them...

[Harovan]

Whoa, Firaxis cluster encountered, both Soren and Trip. ;) :b:

So the AI does reimprove tiles after the situation changes? That would be great indeed.

[Solver]

I have definitely seen the AI changing terrain improvements.

[Jon Shafer]

Yes, the AI will redo plot improvements based on its current situation. This is why there's an "Automated Workers Leave Old Improvements" option. ;)

If you have old saves you can go back and see what they were doing at the time - they may have had a Camp in the past or maybe not - we don't really know. :D

[Harovan]

This is nice to hear, especially since in Civ3 it did definitely not redo improvements. But then, there was not much reason to do so, since their yield never changed, except with railroads, which was required everywhere, anyway. In cIV you developers did a nice job to give a variety of possible improvements, the production of which in many cases even changes over time, so it is possible to provide cities with hand-tailored improvements. And it is even nicer to see, that the AI seems to use that as well.

[Addled Platypus]

learned several things..

thanks Sir Ralph

[Sirian]

More silence from Yin. Is that indicative of a compelling time period in his latest game? :)

"A couple more turns..." :lol:

[yin26]

Indeed! I'm having a lot of fun. In my current game, I'm pushing city production as hard a possible. I managed 8 cities:

<img src=http://apolyton.net/upload/view.php?file=1807_8citieslateron.jpg>

However, I am concluding that this is not ICS but REX. Risks must be taken (almost lost a few cities to barbs), production is slowed, econ drops to negative forcing a scale back in science, etc. Also, it's really great that there is no more settler diarrhea on the part of the AI, either. The AI's expansion is aggressive but not obnoxious, and with borders that now actually mean something, holding back the AI expansion becomes a fun mini game.

If anything, however, I would make the cities actually LOSE a population point after creating a settler.

[Sirian]

Cities "lose" population by not growing while training workers and settlers. It's an elegant solution, because it balances out high-shield and high-food city sites, letting both or either produce settlers and workers efficiently. This really adds a lot of tactical options!

Dropping the population would require undoing the "no growth" thing, and also PREVENT creation of settler or worker from size 1 city.

I can see some up sides to the old way, but I much prefer this method now that I've had a lot of contact with it. It's also easier for totally new players to grasp! (Having to grow your city to size 3 in Civ3 before you could build a settler was totally unintuitive!)


- Sirian

[Solver]

The point is, even if you do manage such REXing to a limited degree, you're not really gaining much by that. You're forced to decrease science spending, you have more cities to defend (and if you don't the AIs will take advantage of it), your cities are smaller (less specialists), and you're not neccessarily gaining enough in return.

[yin26]

Yes, those are good points. Of course, part of the way one can get these cities quickly is precisely because you *can* build a settler with a city population of 1, and that also seems couner-intutitive to a degree. Overall, of course, I think this new system is elegantly done! Simple, as you say, and effective.

Something a lot of gamers perhaps aren't aware of though, is that running negative for a while or moving your research down to 90-70% isn't a big deal. If you can get a higher volume of research from more cities, then 80% of a larger number can still be close to or surpass 100% of something smaller. And this is the element of that game that I need to test with the AI because if the player can get away with losing the tech game for a while, I hope I'll see the AI taking advantage.

On the issue of AI overall, I actually think there is something a lot more intutive going on here as well. In my screenshot above, I only have one side from which AIs can get me without going by sea (this is why I will stick with Highlands by the way!), and we know the AI struggles with naval invasions. So if I were to keep Catherine (orange) as a close ally, I might never see much of an attack against me unless somebody hostile to me also take down Catherine...but I would help her out if my goal were to win a space victory or something.

The point is I feel like there is a much greater sense of situational awareness. Not all games should default to AI trying to kill you for no reason other than to "challenge" the player. But if you get stuck between some AIs of differing religions who, via geography or otherwise, have other strategic advantages over you, then I *have* seen the AI steamroll me. This is quite promising to put it mildly. Still need more experience with all this, though. :)

[yin26]

Solver:

True, but volume still matters in the percentage game. Also, if I stay with fewer cities in the early game, I might gain some advantage there, but long-term if I don't get new cities via conquest or culture flip, then I simply won't be able to keep pace with an AI that has had many turns to grow his 8 cities into something powerful and productive.

But to my way of thinking, this is a classicly good decision to make about how to approach the game!

[Solver]

I have generally adopted the habit of building only 5 or 6 cities of my own, but conquering my nearest neighbour. If I find out I am on a landmass with only one other civ, I go conquesting mode because I want the continent for myself.

However, decisions :b:.

BTW, don't underestimate the naval AI, either. It's not pathetic and it's not like the AI would never invade you over water. It's simply that it's worse at naval invasions that land-based invasions, which isn't too big of a surprise. It doesn't mean, though, that you can get away with defending your own island with archers only in the Industrial era.

[Harovan]

I have to back Yins position here. Making settlers is still a bit too easy. The stalled growth during the building of settlers and workers doesn't harm me at all as soon as my city reaches the health/happiness barrier. At the countrary, at this point I don't want my city to grow anymore - the stalled growth is not a hinderance but actually a benefit.

So what do, when my capital reached that size 6..8, depending on the number of early resources? Buildings? There is not much to build that early. Wonders? Ditto, and in the REX phase you won't want your best city to go out of the build schedule for too long. Also, the early wonders obsolete way too fast, so they are not a priority.

Remains building settlers and workers.

The AI won't punish you that early, at least up to monarch (didn't test higher yet). If suffices to put one archer in each city and to have some scouting warriors. The AI already considers this a sufficient deterrent. I have played countless studies (I call so games I play only up to the mid of the medieval age, to test a strategy or feature) REXing like mad, but did not get attacked a single time.

Having to put down research is not an issue either, if you are a good player. The displayed percentage is just that, a ratio. I focus on food, then money in my early improvements and have quite some governors sitting on "focus on cash". That makes the cottages -> hamlets -> villages -> towns grow. Soon I will have the #1 GNP. If I put 60% of 100 into science and the AI 100% of 60 (while it concentrates on a insane military buildup, 3-7 defenders per city!:eek:), we both research equally fast. This additional military does the AI no good; I have never seen these archers and spearmen do anything than to sit as defenders in cities. If it would build offensive forces instead of overdefending its cities, this approach would not work.

I don't want to reintroduce the population drop, that would be an annoyance. However, settlers are a bit too cheap for my gusto still. I would recommend to gradually increase their cost, may be from 100 food/hammers gradually up to 200 or even more.

[Solver]

Play Epic anyway, the only way to go :p.

When I don't want to grow any larger, I prefer not to build extra Settler, but rather to start using specialists for a good GP influx as well. That's up to personal playstyle, though.

You're wrong however about early wonders not being a priority. Some of them are very good. Parthenon, Pyramids (!), Oracle or Stonehenge (especially if you've founded a religion) are all very good wonders in my book.

[Harovan]

Epic scales both timeflow and cost of everything up to 150%. It gives you more turns to move units around, but that's about it. I played studies both normal and epic, the difference in expansion speed (measured in years, not turns) is slim.

The wonders you listed are nice but unnecessary. Parthenon is useful only if you want to focus on GP, which I do in at most 1/3 of my games and studies. Stonehenge is great for early border expansion, however useless if you are creative, and it obsoletes with Calendar, which is a must-to-research if you need plantations. Pyramids gets you Representation early, which gives a nice boost. I don't know what the Oracle does, never built it so far. All nice and dandy, but I don't see the AI focus on early wonders either. Usually I can pick up 1-3 ancient wonders when I am done REXing.

[Arrian]

I have generally adopted the habit of building only 5 or 6 cities of my own, but conquering my nearest neighbour.

I started a new game last night to test rushing (sorta) a neighbor. I stepped up to Prince and chose the Greeks. I actually restarted twice to get a nice spot, because of the step up in difficulty and the change in strategy (plus, it seems that I had been unusually lucky with starting spots until last night). Standard continents map.

Anyway, I built 4 cities of my own and I also built the pyramids (I had stone)... why did I do this? Well, I had it in my head that I could use the civic that gives +1 hammer per town to great effect early. So I built more cottages than I ever had before... and then realized just how long it takes to get them up to town level. Yikes. So that didn't pan out. Shoulda built something else (either more units or a different wonder). Rushed the Gardens with an engineer. I later built the Colossus in a coastal city b/c I had copper and I triggered a GA with 2 GP's, so it was a quick build (again, wonder building while trying to rush, what was I doing??)

I had ivory, so I built 3 elephants, 2 catapults, a couple of phalanxes and 1 axeman. I attacked one of my neighbors, Persia.

I took one city (a city that, had I been attempting to REX, I would've settled), but then bogged down. Persia had ivory and construction too. I failed in my attempt to take down the 2nd city. Persia used a catapult to weaken my main attack stack, and just kept on whittling it down faster than I could heal (my medic-promoted phalanx should really have worked his way over to join the stack, but he was on the other side of the enemy city and kept getting beat up too).

I founded no religion. I had little culture. I was roughly even in tech. Blah.

There are, I think, several possibilities:

1) I wasn't focused enough. To hell with wonders - beeline for BW and Construction, build units, KILL.

2) Early warfare is just plain hard, and taking one city isn't really such a minor thing. Perhaps I should have then made peace, built up a bit more, and hit again.

3) I just suck. :D

-Arrian

[yin26]

Great discussion! I also tend to ignore most early wonders. There should be a closer look at that element of the game.

[Arrian]

I don't know what the Oracle does, never built it so far.

It gives you a free technology. Not shabby, if you have (stone?) to build it double-speed (and/or if you're industrious).

I like the Gardens and the Parthenon too - extra health + 1pop right away is pretty nice (or it can be, if you're not already right up against you happiness limit) and a GP boost can be pretty key.

-Arrian

p.s. One other thought about my game last night: I generated 3 GPs total. 2 were engineers. I held them for a while, eventually using one to rush a partly-completed HG. This was obviously bad GP management. I should have used the first one PRONTO to get something like the Oracle or Parthenon (both built by the AI) and the second I could have held for a GA or used on the Gardens (before investing any hammers in it!). I'm learning...

[Arrian]

I think I'll try that game again tonight. This time, I may go with a more "buildmonger" approach and hit somebody a little later on.

-Arrian

[Harovan]

Ah yes, Hanging Gardens. Great wonder indeed. :b:

I didn't say early wonders are generally useless. They aren't. But they aren't a priority either, because the AI does not focus on wonders either, but rather on defensive military. You can build wonders later anytime.

[Arrian]

In my Greek game last night, the AI built the Stonehenge, the Oracle, the Parthenon and the Great Library. Maybe it doesn't focus on them single-mindedly, but if you don't, it will grab them.

-Arrian

[alexman]

Don't forget that wonders give Great Person points. So early wonders are worth more great people than late wonders. I sometimes build relatively useless wonders just for the great people.

[Solver]

You're underestimating the early wonders :).

I love the Stonehenge because of Great prophet points. Guaranteed Prophet soonish to build a Shrine for your founded religion. The Oracle, timed right, can let you found Confucianism/Christianity or even get Feudalism. Very solid wonders, both of them.

[Harovan]

I don't underestimate them.

I repeat it the second time, and hence post it the third time:

They are not "useless". They just aren't a priority as long as I am expanding. I can always grab a few of them when I am done expanding. For most of the time I succeed. If not, it is not a tragedy either.

[Harovan]

By the way, can we please return to the discussion whether settlers are too cheap or not? Feeding strawmen leads us nowhere.

[Solver]

Another Wonder I forgot, BTW, the Collosus. Try it as a Financial civ for a really interesting effect.

I still don't find Settlers too cheap. Mainly, I don't have such a strong incentive to expand. Then again, I also use rather wide city spacing which might not be really optimal.

[Arrian]

I think settlers are pretty darned expensive, SR. 100 food/hammers... that's roughly equivalent to double a CivIII settler, right (20 food = 2 pop, 30 shields... 50 total units)?

From your earlier post:

So what do, when my capital reached that size 6..8, depending on the number of early resources? Buildings? There is not much to build that early. Wonders? Ditto, and in the REX phase you won't want your best city to go out of the build schedule for too long. Also, the early wonders obsolete way too fast, so they are not a priority.

What about specialists? If you found a religion, build a temple and you can make a priest. If you build a wonder, you can usually make a specialist or two... and those specialists can result in great people, and in turn those great people can be rather powerful.

I've been letting my capitol hit size 3 before starting on settlers, and after a few (with a few warriors mixed in) I'll do something else (wonder, other buildings). Hopefully a newer city can pick up the settler building duties by then.

There may indeed be cause to eventually tweak the cost of settlers in CivIV... although I think 200 food/hammers is extreme (unless in a mod specifically aimed at slowing expansion and fostering epic battles with barbarians).

-Arrian

[Harovan]

Well I do the opposite. I build my first settler in my capital when it is size 3-4, then build some basic improvements like barracks and/or library and as soon it is at or close to the cap, it's settler, settler, settler. If I have 2 food resources (improved by that time) and a couple of forest tiles to work at (usually not a problem either), numbers like 6 excess food and 4-6 hammers are reasonnable, which drops the time to build a setter to 8-10 turns on normal. A second city can build archers and a standing military inbetween, and city #3 .. #? build just improvements, or yield me the gold for upkeep (cottages!) or even start on a wonder or 2.

Specialists I use in due time. A shrine is great, but only if I founded an early religion, which I am not always able to achieve. Scientists to found Academies in your top cities are also great. I almost never use specialists for techs, at least not early ones. Long time effects are better than a free technology, which I can research in 2 turns after I built up my economy, or which the AI is glad to trade me. :)

[Arrian]

I use the first several great scientists on academies (unless I want a GA... that depends) in my best cities. Great Prophets tend to make the holy shrine thingy if I've founded religions (in all but my most recent game, I've founded multiple religions). Engineers, though... typically I don't get them until later, but if you have some stone and get the pyramids, you can use them to rush early wonders that generate more GPPs in addition to their effects... mmm. More points and more people and more point and more people and aaaaahhh!![/Beavis*]

Anyway, it seems to me that both have their advantages and disadvantages... we will see in time if either emerges as "THE" choice - in which case the strategic choice balance is off and will need to be addressed.

-Arrian

* - Beavis & Butthead. There was an episode where they came up with a plan to make photocopies of a dollar bill and become rich so they could get women. "We'll get more money, and we'll get some chicks, and we'll get some more money, and more chicks... more money and more chicks and more money, more chicks, more money more chicks aaaaaaahhh!" as Beavis worked himself into a frenzy. It was beautiful.

[Sirian]

Originally posted by yin26
we know the AI struggles with naval invasions.

We do? Tell that to Tokugawa. :lol:

My last Continents game on Emperor, my immediate neighbor Tokugawa declared war, sent in only two units by land, I moved my units to respond, expecting more to follow, but then he brought a naval force of two-galleys-full and ripped up my flank, took a city, and because I had an enemy on the other side of me as well, effectively knocked me out of the game.

I was the one struggling in that instance.


- Sirian

[yin26]

I mean that purely in the sense that it takes a great deal more of a coding effort to get the AI to use the sea properly. Land attacks are not only far easier for the AI but also far harder for the human to counter because of the various routes on entry AND because you can't simply sink a land ship and send a whole stack to the bottom of the sea.

Highlands for me from now on!

EDIT: Indeed, I noticed that many of the early "I beat the game!" reports were players protected by water. This was my perception at least.

[Harovan]

Highlands is great.

If only we could get X- and Y-wrapping, so that you don't have a "wall" (map limits) to cover your butt.

Sirian? :cute: :doitnow!:

[yin26]

YES! EXACTLY!

[Nikolai]

I've lost a city only twice so far(it helps being a builder and avilding war if I don't have to enter it, but anyway...;)), and one of them was by purpose(it was worth nothing to me and situated as a one tile thing rigt bwtween of two of my enemies, for some reason that I got peace with its earlier owner before the revolt was over seems to have stopped it from gaining any tiles by culture...:hmmm: ), the other by sea. I was happily eradicating the Malinese when a ship with their troops showed up in the opposite part of my country right where I had both poor infrastructure by that time AND only a minimum of troops. I had to stall my assault in the Malinese heartland and hurry back to take back my land. When I had just done that, the Malinese brought my half-friend Bismarch(who unfortunately was more friendly to Mansa Musa), and I had to fastly get a peace with Mali, which thankfully was pretty easy as I by that time had taken half their land anyway, although with Bismarck, the third most powerful man in the world after me, and my by that thinly streched army, it was a difficult situatiuon. I managed to barely save my westernmost city near his border, by letting him eradicate my infrastructure there, while I attacked the only other place where our borders met. It resulted in a stalemate, and I only got a white peace after ruining my army and a bit of luck, plus the introduction of my ally Tucogawa, which barely let me save my border, but it was close. After that I thankfully got peace for the rest of the game and missed a space victory with 6 turns because the game ended in 2050.

[Dravin]

Not sure how to counter this yet. Any ideas?


Aircraft are your friend, some bombers can chew up a SoD pretty handily or even spread out units if you have enough or see them coming early enough, if he doesn't bunch up into a SoD some calvary (mechanical or otherwise) can be used to pick off those who can't handle it (of course catapults protected by spears/pikes puts a damper on that), if he is in a SoD early, bring some of your own catapults to the fight, one thing I've found is that just filling your cities with a bunch of unsupported garrison type units (archers, infantry) is asking for a bad day.

At least that's how I've managed so far.

[Sirian]

Originally posted by yin26
I mean that purely in the sense that it takes a great deal more of a coding effort to get the AI to use the sea properly. Land attacks are not only far easier for the AI but also far harder for the human to counter because of the various routes on entry AND because you can't simply sink a land ship and send a whole stack to the bottom of the sea.


I hope you do play something besides "Highlands from here to eternity". Try Great Plains and Oasis, Pangaea, Lakes, and especially Ice Age. Ice Age with Wide Continents can be nasty hard due to the general food shortage.

Water maps are definitely easier, by about a difficulty level give or take. Coping with AI navies is not as simple as that, though. You can do all KINDS of things on land with modifiers: terrain modifiers, promotions, cities, etc. At sea... it's straight up, and you will not dominate without a technological edge (caravel vs galley, destroyer vs frigate, etc).

How about this? Try an Emperor game of Archiepelago and LOOK at the AI's actual naval performance, rather than projecting forward from Civ3. You liked my Highlands recommendation, so give this a shot as well. Having a continent to yourself is one thing, but having your own empire scattered across multiple islands is something else.


- Sirian

[yin26]

Cool. Will do. :)

[Mace]

Originally posted by Sirian
How about this? Try an Emperor game of Archiepelago and LOOK at the AI's actual naval performance, rather than projecting forward from Civ3. You liked my Highlands recommendation, so give this a shot as well. Having a continent to yourself is one thing, but having your own empire scattered across multiple islands is something else.
- Sirian

Now THAT's the kind of game I like. Archipeligo.
I have not played one of those yet in Civ4. It will be my next game! I can just see it--Financial civ, Colossus, arch map. And Mace doing his old-school naval domination tricks...

[Solver]

Yin, don't stick to just one map type :). Pangaea is also fun for an all-land game, Terra is an awesome map for those who have the RAM. Continents makes for some interesting games (and naval invasions), and Archipelago simply is very different.

[LaRusso]

Originally posted by Solver
Yin, don't stick to just one map type :). Pangaea is also fun for an all-land game, Terra is an awesome map for those who have the RAM. Continents makes for some interesting games (and naval invasions), and Archipelago simply is very different.

1mb or 2mb for terra?
please tell me it is not 2 mb:scared:
is the game really that resourceful, or is it a memory leak? i mean, 1gb handles massive rtw battles in great detail...

[yin26]

Unless I'm wrong, though, is there a way to do a completely random map?

[The_Aussie_Lurker]

So Yin, just in the time you have been playing the game, how is your overall 'Civ4 experience', and do you think that ICS-even if not dead-is certainly not the brain-dead sure route to victory it once was? It may sound wierd, but your opinion on this really does matter to me (well, kinda, as I already have the game myself ;)!) I am very interested to hear your views on the overall game experience, though.
I personally spent over 2 and a half hours just playing the tutorial-would have been longer except I had work the next day ;)!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

[yin26]

Aussie_Lurker:

I think you just love ANY feedback Civ4-related! ;)

My biggest complaint in previous games was that spamming cities required little to no thought. I think I can say with confidence that even though you can make city production a priority, it requires you to think carefully, for example, about how to cover your science production, how to defend against barbs, how to use Great People to make up for some of the sacrifices you've made, etc. To me, that's strategy! It's too early, of course, to say if one of these lines is going to surface as the killer strategy, but it's often true in games like this that a week later somebody will have the killer counter. :)

So I'll sum up for now with this: I do think that, to use the Sid quote, there are a lot of "interesting decisions" to be made in Civ 4. Some are quite simple but profound: Culture bomb or immediate gold? Others are more long-range: Do I convert his cities so he likes me more or do I convince his neighbor to attack? Then there's the fact that Wonders go obsolete only on a civ-by-civ basis, which means the running up the tech tree can actually take away some of your wonder benefits but wouldn't stop a civ that's behind in tech from having that same wonder and doing more with it. Or that each city can only hold two wonders, which is a bit of a counter to the idea of "fewer cities but bigger." And if your wonders are more spead out, they are more vulnerable to attack, too.

I could go on and on, but there seems to be a geniune complexity here born of several very simple elements. Finally, I like that the kind of game you will have depends greatly on luck of the draw. It's quite possible given geography and religion, for example, that you'll either be protected from war or involved in it very early. It sorta just makes sense.

[Solver]

LaRusso: Terra maps are bigger than any other map type, that's why they take a lot of memory.

Yin: at this point, would you yourself say that you should eat the box :)?

[yin26]

Originally posted by Solver
Yin: at this point, would you yourself say that you should eat the box :)?

It's looking that way at least on the ICS issue. On combat, though, I'm not so sure. Need more time. :cool:

[Xmudder]

Originally posted by yin26

It's looking that way at least on the ICS issue. On combat, though, I'm not so sure. Need more time. :cool:

Read your pm's, Yin.

[Solver]

:dance:

Woo hoo, Cardboard Pizza

[Nikolai]

:dance: So yin, if you find that both ICS and combat is pizza material, do you eat something extra then?:cute:

[Metaliturtle]

more box + manual + EXTREME VIDEO FOOTAGE captured simultaneously from many angles at the same time so we can have Yin eating the box matrix-style.

[The_Aussie_Lurker]

As I have already said, just to hear Yin say how much he is enjoying Civ4 is enough for me, so I personally don't need him eat a cardboard box. Thats just me, though :)!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

[Harovan]

Well said.

[Sirian]

I'd almost rather eat the cardboard (itself) than to eat what people really mean with the phrase "cardboard pizza". (You have NO IDEA how particular I am about my pizza!) :lol:

- Sirian

[LaRusso]

so yin, still having fun?
we want...hell, I WANT more reports:) did you get trashed? did you trash them? who was a major pain in the butt? switching to high-fibre food? cmoncmon, its weekend, we all know you are playing :)

[Barnabas]

is there an everybody starts in their own island option in civ IV?

[Sirian]

Originally posted by Brachy-Pride
is there an everybody starts in their own island option in civ IV?

Yes. Conveniently, it's called Islands.

You have to access from the Custom menu, though.


- Sirian

[yin26]

Originally posted by LaRusso
so yin, still having fun?
we want...hell, I WANT more reports:) did you get trashed? did you trash them? who was a major pain in the butt? switching to high-fibre food? cmoncmon, its weekend, we all know you are playing :)

LOL! I had no idea you were watching, considering all the other threads going on. Well, O.K., I've been working on some various ideas, thinking about the review. I'll try to be better about capturing some stuff from my current game. I am doing a lot of games up to about 1900 a.d. and restarting, just to get a feel for different outcomes. :)

Oh, I also tried my fist Civ MP game to test that out, too. Got creamed! Simultaneous turns on a Duel map is really an entirely different world.

[yin26]

Here's an interesting twist of 8 cities by 350 a.d. I am toying with NO open border and NO religion. Let's see how this goes. :)

<img src=http://apolyton.net/upload/view.php?file=1807_8cities350ad.jpg>

[LaRusso]

well, it's monday and you are back to work. presumably you can't play civ at work, so there's your perfect excuse for another summary of impressions;)

[LaRusso]

bump. lazy yin! bad yin!

[Bill3000]

Come on, we want to see you eat the cardboard box already :doitnow!:

[Addled Platypus]

maybe he has been getting his teeth in shape ?

[Bill3000]

No excuse. :p

[Alanus]

I suppose it's the right thread to post.

I just purchased the game, after one month it is available in stores. Unlike AoE3 that was released about the same date, I could not find any promotional price for Civ4 (in France).

First of all, despite minimum system requirements slightly above my near-4 year old PC, the game is playable, though taking too much HD space.

First impression is that the graphics are amazing. :dance:
I found some bugs in the French localization of the tutorial : nothing important, but reflecting things done in a haste. Reminded me Civ2 French locale.

Other than that, I had no time to even finish the tutorial, so no impression yet on the gameplay.
My kids are already a few games ahead of me....