Civ4 = Flash Civ

[LzPrst]

I've played a few games now and I came to realize that the game just flies by. So I decided to sit back down again and try another tactic. Specialization. One city would produce units, one would produce tech, one great people and one commerce. Roughly, and I had a few extra cities as well. This was done to counter the feeling that the game is over before I get started. The epochs crash by and the AI forces the technology race to run at such a pace that you cant stop teching and building buildings.

I started a normal continents game on noble with 6 opponents. I specialized my cities, cranked out great people in the capital had a unit producer as 2nd city and a few others to do other stuff, 8 in total. I soon realized that it didnt work as I had planned. My production city didnt build a single culture or tech building, only units and production\happiness\health buildings, but when I got longbowmen I didnt even have time to build 8 of them before I had gunpowder. So I started building musketmen and I didnt get to build more than 4 of them before I had grenadiers. I also wanted a wonder so my unit producing city flipped over to build a wonder as it had the highest production. This of course ended completely my ability to compete militarily, but I didnt mind much since I was isolated on my own island.

My capital managed to keep up with buildings for the first part of the game, I had beaureaucracy when I got it which helped for that. But when I came to the industrial era I went to the modern era so fast that I had tons of buildings to build.

Alone on my large island I figured I'd build a navy instead of an army. Never got around to it. I even had one city that was supposed to be my naval yard, producing only ships and whatever needed to keep the city large enough to be productive. even that city didnt get to crank out very many ships.

I stopped the game when the AI started building the spaceship in 1954.
At that time I researched a tech on 3-5 turns. I didnt get to build a single cavalry unit cause the tanks were available before I had finished my factories so I could start cavalry production.

I didnt waste any resources fighting any wars. I tried to keep unit production to equal what I felt was necessary for defence, but couldnt even cover that with two cities producing units.

Altogether I've come to think that the game progresses too fast from epoch to epoch. I feel I dont have time to enjoy the industrial era because before I've built half the essential buildings in specialized cities, I've reached modern. in early times its not that relevant but mid-game the economy heats up and tech progresses so fast I cant seem to keep up productionwise. And if I dont research at that rate the AI will out-tech me and leave me in the dust.

I have tried epic games as well, but they only seem to give more time hitting end turn with the same result.

Do you agree that the game flies by too fast? It was my first impression, but I figured I might be doing something wrong. After trying several tactics to counter exactly this effect I found the game still runs from start to end too quickly to enjoy properly the different epochs.

Any thoughts?

[dearmad]

Yeah, but I modded it. Much more fun now for me.

[evizaer]

Normal gamse go REALLY fast. It's almost annoying.

[LordShiva]

Voted yes.

Leaves me with that slightly unsatisfied feeling I used to get when playing RoN.

[RickBlaine]

Unfortunately, this is "as intended"--and the reference to RoN is apt. The game was designed to be appealing to the RTS audience, which is far larger than the TBS audience.

[xxFlukexx]

Voted sort of. I think renaissance/early industrialization and modern go by too quickly. Right when you get tanks the game becomes a mad dash for spaceship or diplo victories.

Ancient and medieval go by fine for me, lots of time to mess around in. You can't expect to be able to build every improvement and build military at the same time, that's silly.

Much longer than RoN though, a competitive game of RoN lasts 20-25 minutes max.

But if you are alone on an island, it's gonna be *much* shorter. In a game with lots of military conquest it can take I dunno 5+ hrs for a game while a game with few wars can take 2-3 hrs.

[marvinkosh]

It does tend to fly by a bit quicker, but in some cases this is because you no longer have to micro-manage shields (well, hammers now) you just click what you want and wait. There's also the fact that you can group units intelligently and give them orders to perform, workers especially. These little touches help speed along the gameplay.

If I'm going to be going on a rampage of chaos and destruction I make sure to pick out a few cities that are suited to constructing units. Now, not all of them will be cranking out units all of the time, but at least one will be dedicated to producing replacement defensive units. I also have one that makes seige weaponry only, and since they don't take as much hammers to produce it doesn't have to be my best city, it just needs to be close enough to the front lines.

Since it's not as big a deal as in previous Civs to have some reserves for your army (unless you choose the Pacifism civic) I tend to build more units than I think I will need, because attrition is not always predictable.

[Shadowlord]

I take it you don't play RoN on Big Huge maps with one human opponent plus the maximum number of computer players and a 20 minute peace timer?

[Proteus_MST]

Voted yes.

But IMHO it also depends on how far you are into the game.
Especially the beginning, the time BC goes away fast (IMHO too fast) whereas the game slows down later, especially during modern times.
Part of this seems to stem from the long building times you have especially at the beginning (where having your Scout/s killed by animals or barbs could mean 12 turns or more of inactivity) and of course also from the fact that every game turn in the beginning has 50 years and therefore you race through the centuries.

I hope for one kind of "ages of man" - mod in the near or far future,
which expands the ancient, classical period of history
(which less years per turn and more technologies/units)

[TheHateMale]

I found that at first, now every game I play is at epic speed setting.

[-Ab-]

yes the game is way way too fast
especially epic 4000bc till 1000ad
that bit of tehgame seems exactly the same as standard except everything takes longer to build

this is why war is such a pain to wage,cause it takes ages to build up an army and then its obsolete b4 you can use it
epic ought to have huge long running wars

bit of rebalancing needed imo

[-Ab-]

But if you are alone on an island, it's gonna be *much* shorter. In a game with lots of military conquest it can take I dunno 5+ hrs for a game while a game with few wars can take 2-3 hrs

my last epic game was 4 hours and a bit

epic ought to take 10 hours +
something you play over a few days...

[Tiberius]

Originally posted by RickBlaine
Unfortunately, this is "as intended"--and the reference to RoN is apt. The game was designed to be appealing to the RTS audience, which is far larger than the TBS audience.

Bingo!

Btw, my answer was yes, the game flies by fast, way too fast. It seems a gallop through the ages.

[LzPrst]

So it actually is clear. Firaxis has sold us out. I dont know how many civ'ers there are out there, but shouldnt we have been allowed to keep the very bastion of turnbased games turnbased? Civ will never appeal to the clickfest lovers of RTS games, its not what its about. A civ game should be something you should be able to enjoy, spending time with it. not something you finish in a few hours for the biggest possible adrenaline rush.

this also might shed light on some other issues. the fact that the game flies by quicker and is more appealing to RTS'ers is also a way of making it more MP friendly (for people without organizational skills or patience) which might explain why the AI is a little daft...

What I loved about civilization was the possibility to build actual civilizations, not just grow-build-spacerace. dearmads mod is a step in the right direction, but I feel something is wrong when dearmad has to step in and fix the game for us...

Should we bomb firaxis with mails telling them that we want our TBS game back and corporate greed be damned?

[-Ab-]

i wouldnt say "sold out" yet....
the game has issues and they can be patched if Fixaxis chooses to do so
will they listen to what people are saying and correct it or just patch the bugs and not rebalance at all?
i dont know but at least give them they chance to b4 you condemn them