Apolyton Civ4 PREVIEW (By Solver) - Part 1 online

[Solver]

Originally posted by Lorizael
From what source is this upkeep taken out of? Does it just get pulled from your national treasury?

Yes, money, of course. That's why your GPT becomes horrible if you overexpand early.

[GeoModder]

Yes, makes sense to me too. Just noticed that you had a hell of a lot of conquered cities and thought that nothing really stopped a player from going on a world conquest without some drawbacks financially.
Nice to see that warring isn't that easy.

Btw, does a player 'plunders' an amount of gold when he takes a city from another civ? 't Could still be that by taking cities you can afford the upkeep forthem a few turns.

[Lorizael]

Originally posted by Solver


Yes, money, of course. That's why your GPT becomes horrible if you overexpand early.

I was just thinking that it might come out of the gold produced by invidividual cities. Because it's called city upkeep. But that didn't seem right to me, because it would be too much like corruption. Coming out of the treasury makes sense.

[Solver]

Btw, does a player 'plunders' an amount of gold when he takes a city from another civ? 't Could still be that by taking cities you can afford the upkeep forthem a few turns.

Yes. I find it crucial in my early wars.

[Lorizael]

Is the negative of having zero treasury the same as it was before?

[Solver]

Can't answer, don't remember what it was .

And goodnight all, I'm going to bed now - no more answers from me for a while .

[GeoModder]

G'night. (should do the same )

[Lorizael]

Thank you for all the information.

[ajbera]

Thanks Solver! Have a good night, you've earned it.

[The_Aussie_Lurker]

Hiya Solver. I know you have gone to the 'Land of Nod' (the problems of being in two different timezones !) but I was wondering if, when you awake, you could say a little more about naval and air combat? In particular, I would really love to find out how effective navies are at blocking sea-borne trade routes now (both resource-trade and the more 'lucrative' underlying city-city trade), and whether you are able to recieve cash from pillaging terrain improvements-as was suggested on that French preview (much earlier build, admittedly). Additionally with air combat, do some ground and air come with an automatic bonus to air-defense, or is that only possible via promotions (or very specific unit-types)?
As always, thanks for your time, and I look forward to your answers !

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

[Peter Triggs]

Originally posted by MarkG
no comment on my dual monitor photo?

Wow!

That really brings out the geekiness in me.

The only question left is "Will Santa bring it or will it be a birthday present?"

[conmcb25]

Excellent review, even with all the curmudgeoning going on

[hexagonian]

And the CTP-ization of civ continues...at least there are elements from CTP that are working their way into the civ4 system.

As you get larger, you end up paying a greater maintenance cost for those cities. This is not too much different from exceeding city caps in CTP. Do so and your cities lose a great deal to crime. It's really the same effect in the end.

It appears that civ4 is using a concept similar to city caps to regulate and stop the ICS system - though the cap appears softer than the one in CTP. The soft cap is what worries me a bit, because a hard cap actually can rein in much of an ICS strat, while a soft cap can be bypassed.

I'm also going to assume that the AI in civ4 is aware of the limitations in an early ICS strat, and does not simply spew out settlers. However, it may be possible that the higher playing levels give benefits to the AI that allow it to spew out a greater number of cities (reduced maintenance costs, more gold intake, food and hammer bonuses) than the player - thus allowing the AI some form of ICS while limiting it for the player at those levels.

The questions to Solver are:
You mention that early ICS tactics are very difficult because of those maintenance costs. Is there a time when you do get established that your empire can handle the costs, and then pursue an ICS-type strategy as a builder?

If so, then an ICS strat merely gets pushed off from an early game event to a mid-game event.

What is the time in turns for a small city to create a settler? Does it take longer than in a normal civ3 game?
How fast does a normal city grow?

Quick settler construction is probably the main reason ICS is such an attractive option, because it gives the player a huge base of early cities, that pay off big time at the end of the game.

High cost in turns for settler construction, although not an ICS killer, works more along the lines as a subtle ICS brake that does not stop it, but simply slow it down - and it does present the following option to the player.

There will come a time in the game when it is more worthwhile to take existing 'fat and well-developed' cities rather than building new ones that would take a great deal of effort and gametime to develop.

Or am I missing the boat on all this???

[sophist]

Originally posted by Solver
So basically, you can bombard city defenses to 0 first.

Is there a distinction between bombarding them to 0 and destroying them?

Originally posted by hexagonian
It appears that civ4 is using a concept similar to city caps to regulate and stop the ICS system - though the cap appears softer than the one in CTP. The soft cap is what worries me a bit, because a hard cap actually can rein in much of an ICS strat, while a soft cap can be bypassed.

Huh? It's not a cap of any sort. It's discouragement. That's much better than hard cap. It's more elegant and doesn't coerce you into doing it the One True Way.

[Verenti]

Waaaait. So the more cities you have, the more money you lose. So if you build a big empire, your military options are Limited because of Maintaince costs? And by that I mean, you can go on a conquering spree because you've expanded large peacefully... Okaaay.