Apolyton Civ4 PREVIEW (By Solver) - Part 1 online

[Jaybe]

"They that take the sword..."

Solver,
4th paragraph, last sentence: "You can choose to attack with your siege and inflict collateral damage on several of the city defenders, but you are likely to use your siege unit in the process."

Did you mean "... but you are likely to lose your siege unit in the process." ??
I can't get it to make sense otherwise.

[MarkG]

even with a granary a pop point is regained in 5 turns only

well now city growing can easily stop for over 10 turns on the early stage. that's a lot

[Solver]

Siege units can attack just like normal units, but then they cause collateral damage. However, they can also bombard cities, which means that they "attack the walls" - they decrease the city defenses, but don't get damaged in the process.

So basically, you can bombard city defenses to 0 first. Then, if you want to, you can attack with your siege weapon directly (like Civ2) which will damage multiple defenders.

[Solver]

1. Pine Right is fixed. Wasn't a typo but a bug on our server.

2. I actually typed "loose" ? It's also a pet peeve of mine!

3.

Did you mean "... but you are likely to lose your siege unit in the process." ??
I can't get it to make sense otherwise.

Of course.

[Fidel]

ah-ha. clever concept, but i can already hear people cry 'this is not realistic' LOL

thiz game iz br0ken

[Solver]

How isn't it? A catapult can fire boulders at city walls from a large distance, but it can also fire at units in the open field - but then it will get charged by the enemy, do some damage, but probably die. In Civ4, if you attack with siege units directly, especially city defenders, you're really likely to lose your unit.

[Harovan]

Originally posted by Solver
I have played Civ3, just pretty long ago . From my memory, though, I can remember usually regaining a pop point very fast after building a Settler.

That's a solid explanation.

I concede defeat.

[Solver]

Ralph - BTW, absolutely feel free to correct me if I say something stupid about Civ3, I expect it's around two years since I played it.

[Harovan]

Originally posted by MarkG

even with a granary a pop point is regained in 5 turns only

well now city growing can easily stop for over 10 turns on the early stage. that's a lot

Except that in Civ3 you needed 2 pop for a settler. 2 x 5 makes also 10 turns. Of course I concur, that it's a lot.

[Harovan]

Originally posted by Solver
Ralph - BTW, absolutely feel free to correct me if I say something stupid about Civ3, I expect it's around two years since I played it.

Rest assured, this one was the only bug I found. The other text is about new stuff.

[Solver]

Well, but in Civ3, your cities grew at that time. If Settlers took more than 5 turns to produce (IIRC, was usually the case), your cities would add a pop point while building the Settler.

In Civ4, this has another implication - your Settlers can also be built well in high-food cities with few shields.

[Sub263]

This is part one, but how many parts will there be exactly?

[Solver]

Three.

[Aro]

Originally posted by Solver
...about Civ3, I expect it's around two years since I played it.

And we know why.

We definitely need a "envious" smiley...

[Harovan]

Originally posted by Solver
Well, but in Civ3, your cities grew at that time. If Settlers took more than 5 turns to produce (IIRC, was usually the case), your cities would add a pop point while building the Settler.

In Civ4, this has another implication - your Settlers can also be built well in high-food cities with few shields.

Yes, and that is a good thing, as I mentioned. A good human player would manage to balance food growth and shield production in Civ3, but the AI was not able to do it and wasted masses of shields in that process.

By the way, can you also build settlers in cities without food growth? I.e. costs building a settler still population?