Your Worst Fear for Civ 4 (The Negativity Post)

[Russian_King]

Originally posted by Senethro
ICS isn't just spamming up the map with cities for the fun of it. Its the best way of generating resources and turn advantage. Due to zone-of-control rules in some games its also very defensible.

While the dominating tactic in Civ4 may not necessarily be ICS, the same people that made ICS will get out their spreadsheets and calculate what the best method of terraforming is. There will be an equivalent that you'll come to hate just as much.

haah thats so true! i think better ICS than anything else! because ICS is the ultimate fundamental strategy for anything (build resource gather as far as u can)

but i would in fact like to see some civ growth between settler builds.

[Russian_King]

Originally posted by Xorbon
Another fear: that the game is dumbed-down so that the drooling, pimply-faced kids with ADD will be able to play.

hahahahaha oh that one almost made me cry!
and totally agree! although i did start civ2 when i was 13! but then i didnt know how to play too well .. least i still played it

[Flubber]

Originally posted by Mace
my worst fear: ICS is still the best strategy

Agreed-- although its probably my second worst fear

My worst fear is that 4 will be more like 3 than it is 2 or Smax.

[Aro]

Originally posted by Xorbon
Another fear: that the game is dumbed-down so that the drooling, pimply-faced kids with ADD will be able to play.

Originally posted by Russian_King


hahahahaha oh that one almost made me cry!
and totally agree! although i did start civ2 when i was 13! but then i didnt know how to play too well .. least i still played it

My son has 12, and he's playing Civ III since the game was released and I bought it. I helped a little in his first steps, no more than that, and today he's a reasonable player. But what he really likes is real time strategy, like Age of Empires and sequels. However, he’s very excited about Civ IV…

Edited: grammar

[Xorbon]

Originally posted by Aro
My son has 12, and he's playing Civ III since the game was released and I bought it. I helped a little in his first steps, no more than that, and today he's a reasonable player. But what he really likes is real time strategy, like Age of Empires and sequels. However, he’s very excited about Civ IV…

Not all kids drool, have pimples, or have ADD.

[Solver]

And when he grows up more he'll realise that Civ is much superior to Age of Empires .

[Nikolai]

Nearly anything is superior to Age of Empires.

[Aro]

Originally posted by Solver
And when he grows up more he'll realise that Civ is much superior to Age of Empires .

I know that.

[Russian_King]

lol, yes civ is superior to AOE, however NOT everything else is superior to it! AOE is still one of the best strategy games out there, i play a mode called tool wars
where u have fundamental units: melee (axemen) ranged (archer) a ranged counterpart (slinger) and boats and towers. the ultimate papwe scissors rock

axe=rock, archer=paper, slinger=scissors

but u have to back ur armies up. the ultimate goal is to outproduce ur opponent by building masses of vilagers and running ur entire continent dry fo resources! thats what i call Ultimate fundamental RTS gameplay!

but civ is a lot more interesting in terms of politics etc. :P


oh someone mentioned that paper scissors rock was boring: WRONG PSR is the best ever! but it only suits RTS, a civ game shud have defence and attack values! because of its setup where some points u defend and some u attack, u cant just use the same unit for both thats silly. i really do hope PSR does not ship with civ4 itll spoil the war forever! also: i say group combat! like in CTP!!!

[Addled Platypus]

Originally posted by Solver
And if infinite rail movement is gone, maybe we should have Yin add some shredded EULA to his food ?

for dessert the manual?

I will pay for printing and shipping

[Paddy]

my worst fear.... that the game will need repeated patches

leading to a patch that is far from complete, and the company then give up on as they have moved on to Pirates 6 and then Civ 5... just like civ III

[Dis]

naw, they'll move onto Sim Golf 2 first.

Speaking of, I think it was Yin's posts which convinced me to buy Sim Golf. Worst $30 I ever spent. Okay that's not true, but it's pretty close.

[Alex]

come on, simgolf is not a game THAT bad... it is mildly fun and entertaining for a while... i'd say for five minutes... or ten.

[Odin]

My worst fears:

1. too much micromanagement (like having to move aroung 100 workers individually becaise the auto-worker AI is idiotic)

2. ICS

3. the AI civs marching through MY territory again, and again, and again

4. not enough diplomatic options

[Darkstar]

Adm.Naismith, I think you missed my point. If you seperate out the production to units creator from the city, then players will be able to create all the unit makers that they can support. That won't be ICS... that will be driven by their strategic concerns.

Now, repeat that for each layer...
Commerce centers to create trade/production to money

Food centers to distribute food or ship food to commerce centers (for further conversion to money)

Religion centers to create culture and or national identity.

A city is then what? it is just a GOVERNMENT CENTER. That's right. It's purely an administrative center. For game purposes, I'd let it create only 1 unit... worker. The worker then builds everything else.

That's it. Now, your Government center would end up being transportation hubs. Population centers would grow up around that, as any place you have a used crossroads, you will get people.

Now, you have a natural system. Players would try to ICS at first, but they'd gravitate to:
Making as many workers as they think they need:
* to road everything in site (the "Road To" would keep down MM of this)
* to make new centers of other layers (military, commerce, food, etc)

Think about it. Then, we no longer have ICS, because just adding new Government Centers isn't what you want. As Civ players, we want units, money, and research. We could build all the unit creators we could supply... but we could only maximize that construction at the cost of our other interest. If all our empire/national production is going to make units, we won't have anything left to turn into research. If all our production is going to fuel research, we cannot be cranking out the vandal hordes to roll over our opponents.

It's trivial to stop ICS. It's trivial to turn Civ into a game about using your resource to make the kind of empire you want to play or what you need to survive. There would never be a focus on "cities". Building 4 new government centers will not also improve your resource harversting by 4 more collection centers. It will not immediately grant you 4 more tile->Unit makers. It will not immediately grant you 4 more tile->Money or tile->Research total.

That's how you stop ICS. Players will still want to expand, as fast as they can. They will still want to get all their resources on their land harvested as fast as possible, and to turn those harvested resources into what they want (units, money, and research). But they'll have to do it all while balancing what they spend their resources on, by protecting their transportation infrastructure, and by prioritizing whether they should build more unit producers or more research creators. Or even, both of those at once (shorting something else).

A game of strategic decisions and plans, from the very ground up.