ICGames review

[Jon Shafer]

Originally posted by Nikolai
Forget that, you have mcuh more interesting info to come with.

Didn't your mommy ever tell you that instant gratification is a bad thing?

[GeoModder]

Originally posted by Solver
I can see someone writing a program that takes in account the number of posts per day here, and gives an estimate based on that .

Don't give people ideas now.

[Nikolai]

Originally posted by Trip

Didn't your mommy ever tell you that instant gratification is a bad thing?

Sorry, but I do not understnad what that means?

[GeoModder]

It makes you spoiled.

[Jaybe]

What! Having to WORK for your desires and not having them HANDED to you on a silver platter (as soon as you ask for them, of course) is a GOOD thing??!

Some people have the luck of being spoiled (both the good and the bad)

[The_Aussie_Lurker]

Hey guys, don't know if you are interested, but Soren made an appearance on CFC, and 'more or less' confirmed several of my theories regarding why ICS won't be as successful as in previous iterations of the game (or, more to the point, how smaller civs will be able to keep pace with larger civs).

Check out the thread in question HERE

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

[GeoModder]

I can only see this in proportion, for as far as I know nothing stop larger civs to specialize cities as well and have the same benefits as those smaller civs have, but perhaps 10-20 turns later until the larger city numbers are starting to make a difference (when those are getting specialized).

[Senethro]

In a battle between the Players and the Creators to break a game, I've always seen the players win. Civ4 shall be broken just as every Civ game before it has.

What I'm worried about is that with the ranking system in multiplayer Firaxis will feel obliged to "fix" the game. Not a bad thing in itself, but I've seen a lot of patches in various games that broke the game further, or solved a problem by deleting it entirely, increasing fairness at the cost of variety.

[The_Aussie_Lurker]

I think you are misunderstanding things guys. First up, there is a difference between size in terms of population, and size in terms of number of cities. In the former case, the player build a half a dozen key cities very early in the game-probably close to vital resources like iron or wheat. If he sustains the health of these cities, and builds the improvements he needs to reduce their running costs, then this will lead to very profitable cities that can afford to start to specialise within the first 1000-2000 years of the game. This specialisation will, in turn, allow them to create Great People and foster big spurts in economic, cultural and technological growth. Also, with the extra cash he will have (especially if he is heavily involved in trade) he can push his cultural/technological growth even further.
Meanwhile the latter player starts spamming his settlers, sending them out in all directions and attempting to grab every last space of land (as currently occurs). Only problem is that this will leave said player short of cash, cash which he desperately needs to maintain his tech and culture rates-this leads to valuable tiles around certain cities getting swallowed up by neighbouring civs, whilst all the time he finds himself with less cash in the kitty and falling way behind in the tech race. Yes, in time he will get his population in these cities up to a reasonable level to specialise, but by this time he/she may already be as much as 1500 years behind nations only a quarter of his size. He can catch up if he gets sufficient Great People via specialisation (asuuming his neighbours haven't 'swallowed him up'), but this may not occur until the Late Middle/Early Industrial ages-but thats fine because it will simply make for a much more fun end-game than has ever been the case in Civ1,2 or 3.
A middle road might be to expand a bit, build up your cities for around 10-20 turns, then expand a little bit more etc etc-but even this 'staged expansion' will probably lead to a more even level of power between civs of varying size than is currently the case.
What you have to realise is that at no time have they indicated a desire to end large nations, merely to ensure that size alone is not the source of all power and ultimate victory. I can't see why you guys lack the ability to be positive for a change .

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

[GeoModder]

Mmm, still think you only have half a point... Guess I will need to see it in action before really grasping/believing it.

[Aro]

@Paddy: You definitely has a point here.
I would love to lead a small/medium empire, strong in tech, culture and military. Especially in the early game. OTOH, I would like to keep my alternatives open, like be able to build a huge empire, under special circumstances. I don’t know, I just would like to see a “smart” game, for a change. But…

Originally posted by Senethro
In a battle between the Players and the Creators to break a game, I've always seen the players win. Civ4 shall be broken just as every Civ game before it has.

We just don’t have technology enough to make AI better. Well, we do have, but is not cheap. At least for us… Remember the kind of computer necessary to win consistently the chess-masters.

But who cares? I want my Civ IV, as soon as possible, no matters how buggy and crude it will be. I’ll patch it, anyway.

[The_Aussie_Lurker]

As I said, the issue for me is that Small to medium nations won't be automatically penalised for simply being small, wheras players who simply spam the landscape with their settlers will only do so if they are prepared to sacrifice culture and tech advancement. To me, that just sounds like such a great thing-no more Snowball Effect!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

[GeoModder]

Oh, I agree it's a great thing!
Just not sure yet if it will turn out this way.

[Maniac]

What if I want a feudalist civ with many small towns?

While I like reducing the power of ICS, I hope Firaxis hasn't created the opposite problem, making it completely unprofitable to have many cities. I also hope for some civics choices can affect how many cities you can found without a problem, so that there's a variety of strategies possible.

[Datajack Franit]

GL cannot be target of enemy? And how are you going to prevent the AI from cheating?