The Balance of Power, The Final Tally

The Balance of Power: Builders vs. Warmongers

CIV changes this landscape a great deal, and debates will no doubt rage at great length on this subject. Here's how it seems to me: Novice/inexperienced players will find defending much easier than C3C. Reckless, unplanned, unintelligent warmongering will get you CLOBBERED in CIV. A well-planned, combined-arms campaign, however, is a great deal more difficult to resist than in previous versions. Here's a bunch of important details...

• Improvements give you money when you rip them up now. That means a Choker is breaking even on his troops abroad while he's ruining your land. Advantage: Attacker


• Cities are much harder targets, especially after they generate culture or build walls. It takes a serious siege to take a prepared city now - "sudden kills" are going to be rarer. Advantage: Defender


• Because the game actually warns you when your borders are penetrated, sentinel nets are marginally less important. The era of the reflex-driven ambush-kill is over. Advantage: Defender


• Double moves are no longer possible. Units that exhaust their movement cannot move again for six seconds, even if a new turn dawns. The likelihood of you striking a city before the defender can respond is almost nil. Advantage: Defender


• Instantaneous stack attacks also exist now. Yes, instantaneous. In return for removing the reflex-driven double move, the reflex-driven mid-combat reinforcement is also gone. Advantage: Attacker


• Since cities, by neccessity, are defended by single large stacks, they are more vulnerable to collateral damage. A smart player can split his attacking stacks appropriately, though this carries other risks. Advantage: Unclear


• Units in construction when a resource is cut STOP BEING CONSTRUCTED. Advantage: Attacker


• Forests give the largest defensive bonus now (50%) which means that, particularly in the early game, aggressors will likely have good terrain to approach cities in. Advantage: Attacker


• Failed attacks often mean experienced, PROMOTED defenders; next time will be even harder. Failed defenses may mean promoted attackers, but attacking units have a funny way of dying more often than defenders, both historically and in CIV. Advantage: Defender

Who wins out? I've heard lots and lots and LOTS of arguments either way. Here's a tip, though - spend six months playing before you make up your mind. CIV is a lot deeper in "tactical expression" than C3C, and a lot more potential strategies and counterstrategies work.

The Big Four Strategies - What's Become of Dagger, Choke, Sledge, Castle

Dagger - the quick early rush MUCH tougher to do for new players, slightly tougher to do for veterans. Warrior rushes are folly. Poorly prepared "accidental" rushes are far less likely. Properly planned and executed, though, Daggers are a good bit more dangerous than in C3C; the cities you capture ARE productive right away, unless they're still revolting. Forward base by the enemy civ, anyone?

Choke - the pillager/harasser Tougher to do for new players, easier to do for veterans. Chokes will require a lot more intelligence and planning than "build X unit, rally point to enemy border and go." Since counterunits exist for every unit now, that strategy will just get you butchered. Noting what your opponent does and does not have for resources, striking the important resource first, and then choking with the unit they can no longer build the counter for... now that, on the other hand, is choice. "Best defender always defends" makes attacking stacks of pillagers tough, but the larger your pillager stack, the more it costs you, and the more production you've sunk into tearing up tiles. One large stack can really tear up the enemy land, but if they're repairing the land 4 turns after you pass, it doesn't do as much good when it costs you 10 gold a turn...

Sledgehammer - one big punch - Somewhat harder to do for new players, about the same for veterans. "Build my highest strength unit in large numbers and go" is a recipe for disaster now. Stacks need to be carefully planned and prepared, composed of the right forces and also the right promotions. Promotions such as Medic I, II, and March makes Sledging easier, as does the slower speed of roads until Engineering. Catapults and Castles, on the other hand, make it a bit tougher, since no stack wants to be counterattacked by a bunch of siege equipment. With proper scouting ahead of the stack (yes, send a mounted unit or two ahead) and proper use of terrain, though, the effectiveness of the sledge is about break-even.

Castle - stand firm against the world Easy to set up, especially for newer players, but potentially also much easier to foil, especially for veterans. Pre-Engineering movement rates leave new players quite vulnerable to feints and draws. The common new player mistake of overbuilding the wrong type of defender (often, Ranged Units) can put them in a bad situation tactically and financially. Ranged units are great city defenders... but not so keen at holding the land itself. It's quite easy for a castle player to end up holed up in his cities waiting to die, rather than holed up in his empire, waiting to win.

The Final Tally

Soren Johnson put it best: "CIV - sometimes it's better to be good, than lucky." I've said it before and I'll say it again many times - CIV's biggest difference over C3C is that canned, often-repeated-and-mimicked strategies just won't work anymore. There are so many approaches and styles, so many available responses, and so many minor factors to balance between health, happiness, commerce, military, this-tech-or-that-one... "build this and then do that" is simply not relevant anymore.

If you can adapt, improvise, think, and react, you will LOVE Civilization 4. If you are looking for a game where pet strategies handed down from five friends can be imitated to the Nth degree, and will work every time...stick with C3C.

Civilization 4: Adapt and conquer.