Apolyton Civ4 PREVIEW (By Solver) - Part 2 online

[Shogun Gunner]

Excellent series of articles Solver!

And I was led to believe you would be covering naval stuff in part 2. j/k

This is great reading for getting oriented to the changes in cIV. THANK YOU.

I see this is the end ICS...which is great.

[Solver]

Thanks .

[alva]

Golden Ages require an increasing number of unique Great People; you cannot cash in 2 Great Prophets and 1 Great Artist for your second GA.

So what does happen when you need more GP's to start of a GA than there are (unique that is)?

[RobC]

Re: Only 4 golden ages?

Originally posted by Xmudder
If it takes 2 or more great people of different types to start a golden age, then the game is capped at 4 golden ages (one of each specialist). Is this right?

This is possible:

1st GA: 1 great prophet, 1 great artist
2nd GA: 1 great prophet, 1 great artist, 1 great engineer
3rd GA: 1 great prophet, 1 great artist, 1 great engineer, 1 great scientist

...

So I think theoretically the last GA you could get would be the 5th GA, with one of every type of great person:

1 great prophet, 1 great artist, 1 great engineer, 1 great scientist, 1 great merchant

Of course, it would take some serious micromanagement (and luck) to get exactly the number of great people you wanted instead of ending up with all prophets and engineers, for example.

[alva]

perhaps you only need two kinds and not all of them have to be different.

[Atahualpa]

I am worried about this specialists feature. This sounds like a lot of micromanagement. If you've got 16 cities, digging into every single of them and adjusting the specialists sounds like a lot of work. This was the reason I never ever bothered with them in Civ3. In the end you forgot about them and soon you had horribly inefficient cities.

How is this handled? Is it really tedious micromanagement? Is there a mayor to assist you and is it cleverer?

[Solver]

Governors are pretty clever in Civ4, you can tell them to manage specialists automatically and they do a good job at it. You can also tell them to emphasize a Great Person, which will mean that they'll put as many specialists as they can without starving the city.

It's not tedious micromanagement. You're not even likely to run specialists in all your cities. I really didn't change them much - just set them, when my cities are ready, and only remove them if I need maximum production. If you're opposed to MM, though, you can let the governor handle 90% of your specialists and it will be fine.

[sophist]

Originally posted by MattPilot


You math is a little off. You start out with 100% base value. So if you are producing 5 GP points a turn, you get 5 GP points a turn. So if you were to add the 200% from pacifism and philosophical trait, you end up with 300%. Thats 15 GP points per turn.

It depends on if you're talking about the increase relative to the base or the new total relative to the base. You have 300% of the original value, but you have 200% more. With Civilization, these bonuses are generally specified as the percentage increase from the base, although it's been inconsistent as to whether they are relative to the base.

In this case, is it that each bonus increases the GP by 100% of the base amount, yielding 15 per turn, or do they stack so that each one doubles the base, yielding 20 per turn?

Originally posted by Atahualpa
I am worried about this specialists feature. This sounds like a lot of micromanagement. If you've got 16 cities, digging into every single of them and adjusting the specialists sounds like a lot of work. This was the reason I never ever bothered with them in Civ3. In the end you forgot about them and soon you had horribly inefficient cities.

Well, you're less likely to have 16 cities. It'll take you a lot longer to get that big. Furthermore, it's not like you'll be tweaking these every single turn.

[conmcb25]

Solver

Great Article! Thanks for emailing it to my work BTW so I had a reason to screw off this afternoon

[Atahualpa]

Originally posted by Solver
Governors are pretty clever in Civ4, you can tell them to manage specialists automatically and they do a good job at it. You can also tell them to emphasize a Great Person, which will mean that they'll put as many specialists as they can without starving the city.

It's not tedious micromanagement. You're not even likely to run specialists in all your cities. I really didn't change them much - just set them, when my cities are ready, and only remove them if I need maximum production. If you're opposed to MM, though, you can let the governor handle 90% of your specialists and it will be fine.

Glad to hear that
From your review and the answeres here, I think Civ4 will be a truly awesome and inspiring game. A real strategy game and a sure bet that I'll put my money on it.

[Niessuh]

then, if

- A small rich nation can compete with a bigger one
- War civics are poor for your economy
- One big city is better than a few medium ones
- You need a lot of improvements in order to grow a big city
- High culture boost your defense
- The combat system makes easier to defend against a superior force
- You don't need wars to get great leaders
- You don't need wars to get golden ages


Why making war? is civ4 the end of warmongering?

I usually play as a builder, but the fun about being a builder is to survive against your neighbours. If a civ4 game is about sit down and watching your little empire grow...

[alva]

I think what he's saying is that being a builder now is a viable option, whereas in Civ3 it being a conqueror was the right way to go.

[Solver]

Yes, exactly. Being a builder is a very viable option. One good city is better than 2 or 3 mediorce cities, but if you have 4 very good cities, a warmonger with 20 cities will still overrun you with his very superior force.

Warmongering is also a viable option, but now we have what I've always wanted to see - being a builder and being a warmonger are both good choices.

And there are reasons for war - you may want to get some Wonders, some Holy City with a Shrine, some nice land, or just to get rid of a competitive civ.

[conmcb25]

Originally posted by alva
I think what he's saying is that being a builder now is a viable option, whereas in Civ3 it being a conqueror was the right way to go.

From what I read that should be true to an extent, BUT you had better be ready to still defend yourself to some degree.

This is going to be a heck of a lot of fun figuring this game out

[alva]

No diplomacy without power to back it up