Apolyton Civ4 PREVIEW (By Solver) - Part 1 online

[hexagonian]

I believe that CTP will be officially 'retired' from my hard drive...or at least I will not be arguing its superiority over the civ series anymore

It does remain to be seen how it compares to CTP/AOM in challenging gameplay, but I do see this...

There is a great amount of potential in civ4, and in the capabilities of the vast modding community to really come up with some innovative mods.

Looking forward to seeing them (and I'm definitely open to being a part of the process, probably not as a lead, but in a support role)

[kofeiini]

Solver: Hasn't it been 17.10. for almost an hour already? Where is 2nd part of your review?

[Solver]

Hex - I am impressed!

As for challenging gameplay, if we compares out of the box games, Civ4 is definitely more challenging. AoM, I don't feel comparing a mod focused on difficulty is fair, but Civ4 is challenging.

The modding possibilities are, of course, indeed excellent. This is a truly moddable civ game, it surpasses CtP2 in moddability, and that's saying something.

[kofeiini]

Since my last post was kind of offtopic, here's something more ontopic. I was asking about religions in the religion topic but didn't quite get any answers. So is it somehow taken care of, that the world technology leader can't discover all the religion-unlocking technologies by his/herself and therefore get all the religion capitals? Or is it even that bad thing if he/she gets them? I was looking the tech tree and noticed that one could kind of streamline in polytheism-> monotheism -> theology, and then get at least hinduism, judaism and christianity. Maybe I didn't get something right, or this isn't that big of a problem at all?

Also I'm a little bit worried that early religions get a head start from the ones discovered later. Then everybody would already be hindu or buddhist by the time christianity and islam are unlocked. Wouldn't this make these later religions kind of useless? Again, it might be, that I'm just making false assumptions by just looking a tech tree that I might not even understand correctly. Though, I noticed that in the screenshot in Solvers review "early religions" seemed to be more dominant than the later ones. (I know, it's just one screenshot, but still)

I would also like to know, how much AI cheats in Civ IV? I understand that it's kind of a necessity because otherwise it would be probably impossible to program competent AI. It would still be nice if cheating is as minimal as possible, and that player at least knows what benefits AI has over him.

Lastly: Is AI actually playing better at higher difficulties? I mean does it use some tricks it won't use on lower difficulties, or does it plan it's moves beforehand somehow?

This game really seems to be awesome, and maybe I still can get as addicted to a civ game as in civ1 and civ2 times. Can't almost wait to get my hands on it.

[Solver]

You must've gotten the tech tree wrong. Well, it's sure possible to found two religions, the easiest combination is Hinduism with Judaism. Founding all seven will be very hard unless you're on a real low difficulty level. Plus, it won't do you much good - the time you spend researching religious technologies is time spent without military and economic technologies!

Christianity is still a rather early religion. Taoism and Islam are late, but not useful:

1) You can found them, quickly spread and convert.
2) You may be alone on an island without a religion up to that point
3) Someone else might found them and go away from your state religion.

In my screen, Buddhism is dominant because I spread it like crazy. Thus, only the civs on other continents developed their religions really. There you see Christianity, which is only on one continent, in one civ, while I covered all of my continent with Buddhism.

The AI does NOT cheat. Seriously. On higher difficulties, it gets some bonuses like cheaper research, production, etc., but it has no rule cheats. It doesn't know where resources are in advance, etc.

On higher difficulties, the AI plays better because it can build stuff faster. That way, it rebuilds after wars faster, researches better, etc., which lets its better use all the options in the game. For example, a Chieftain AI is also smart, but will take forever to build an army, so it will not invade you with any success.

Overall, though, the Civ4 AI is very competent.

[conmcb25]

Originally posted by Solver
Overall, though, the Civ4 AI is very competent.

Thats the best thing we could get out of a new Civ

[Solver]

Now, everything I could say to easily show how competent the AI is would be a violation of the NDA, but you'll find out yourself soon enough anyway .

[The_Aussie_Lurker]

Well, I am sorry to hear this news regarding siege units then-as I felt that such a role (in both defensive and offensive situations) would have been both historically accurate AND achieved the perfect balance between Civ2 and Civ3 siege weapons. One of those situations where accuracy and gameplay would have come together nicely. I appreciate that siege weapons can 'soften up' a stacks defensive bonus without any risk, but I don't see why collateral damage effects of siege weapons should be denied me unless I am prepared to sacrifice the unit as a whole-given that this was not how they actually worked in reality. Can you understand where I am coming from, Solver? I mean, I agree that siege weapons were GROSSLY overpowered in civ3 when on the offensive (though less so than in Civ2), but I at least felt that their 'first strike' capacity in a defending stack was pretty good (if somewhat underpowered). If a moderately beefed up version of this was implemented-for both offense and defense-then I definitely believe that siege weapons would be exactly where they ought to be-both historically and game-play wise!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

[kofeiini]

Thank you Solver for your answers!

It's great to hear about a competent AI although I was hoping it would have been made more through better playing and vicious tricks rather than just giving benefits in research and production. But as I said, it must be really hard to make a killer AI without that kinds of benefits in the game of this complexity.

And about those religions, I think I just have to sit and wait to see, how the whole religion system works, and how well it's in the balance. From your answer it sounds like it's well in balance though.

I think at the moment all my biggest worries are somehow related to different kinds of balance issues: How well different victory-conditions are in balance. Is there "the best unit", are the different traits equal and so on...

But like I said, so far this game looks too good to be true. It's really nice to see that people at Firaxis have not forgot to "add the feeling" to the game this time. Also many many gameplay details seem to be really interesting.

[Solver]

The AI is playing well through tricks. It's just that it will always use the tricks, but higher levels also give it a production boost. But the AI knows how to do some smart things and will do those whenever it can.

Balance... well, it will be better than Civ3. Civ3 was developed with no outside feedback, Civ4 has a beta test team. The beta testers did everything they could to balance the game well.

[Locutus]

Originally posted by asleepathewheel
beta testers telling us how it "really is"

Okay, I'll tell Solver to cancel part 2 and 3 of his preview then

[asleepathewheel]

Originally posted by Locutus


Okay, I'll tell Solver to cancel part 2 and 3 of his preview then

so you must be the beta ringleader then, if Solver takes his marching orders from you.

[Xmudder]

Originally posted by Solver
In my screen, Buddhism is dominant because I spread it like crazy. Thus, only the civs on other continents developed their religions really. There you see Christianity, which is only on one continent, in one civ, while I covered all of my continent with Buddhism.

Does the AI attempt to convert other Civ's cities to their religion? Or just demand conversion in diplomacy?

I like the idea of AI civs with holy cities trying to convert my cities, and being smart enough to demand conversion only when it is reasonable. Or at least converting 1 of my cities, so I can build missionaries to convert the rest.

[FrostyBoy]

WAKE UP OTHER SIDE OF THE WORLD

Well? Where's Part 2 then? I'm waiting. *folds arms*

[Dominae]

Originally posted by The_Aussie_Lurker
Well, I am sorry to hear this news regarding siege units then-as I felt that such a role (in both defensive and offensive situations) would have been both historically accurate AND achieved the perfect balance between Civ2 and Civ3 siege weapons. One of those situations where accuracy and gameplay would have come together nicely. I appreciate that siege weapons can 'soften up' a stacks defensive bonus without any risk, but I don't see why collateral damage effects of siege weapons should be denied me unless I am prepared to sacrifice the unit as a whole-given that this was not how they actually worked in reality. Can you understand where I am coming from, Solver? I mean, I agree that siege weapons were GROSSLY overpowered in civ3 when on the offensive (though less so than in Civ2), but I at least felt that their 'first strike' capacity in a defending stack was pretty good (if somewhat underpowered). If a moderately beefed up version of this was implemented-for both offense and defense-then I definitely believe that siege weapons would be exactly where they ought to be-both historically and game-play wise!

This is actually a very tough thing to balance. You want the "artillery effect" to be useful enough in small quantities so that casual players like them, but not uber in large quantities. As we discovered in Civ3, what's good in moderation is broken in excess.

The thing that strikes me problematic with your idea is that super-defensive stacks lead to stalemates, which leads to boring gameplay. As we know from Civ3, telling the AI not to attack large stacks is exploitable. But so would be telling it to attack while putting a very potent defensive bombardment unit into the player's hands.

I'm curious to see what your reaction will be to the actual implementation. And I'm also curious to see what kinds of mods will be created for artillery units if they are indeed found to be underwhelming (or overwhelming!).