Civ4 = Flash Civ

[RGBVideo]

The problem isn't that the game flies by too fast, it goes about as fast as your normal civI-game -- it's that there are so many different units now which go obsolete so quickly. If you want to capture cities, you'll have to build massive amount of units, and by the time you've built them all, enemy has already upgraded his defenders. In civI, Cavalry unit, available from Horseback Riding, was a very potential unit until the discovery of automobile. How many of you use chariots until the discovery of tanks?

I only play epic games for SP.

[-Ab-]

you ever notice how the map used to seem so much bigger on those old civ1 games?
epic /huge map games are terribly unbalanced because of the map size and even then i feel like the map is too small
things that need to be addresses are amongst others - the movement speed of ships and late era military
have you ever tryed to send an aircraft carrier over to another continent?
omg by the time you get there the space race is nearly finished
and only 3 aircraft on it?
all navy units need alot more movement points and transports need more capacity
mobile land military could perhaps do with an exra movement point or 2 aswell
this would prolly unbalance it for small maps but why cant the units be ajusted to the map size?

i could write alot about this but i wont,i just hope they will patch the game and let it reach its potential

[Tiberius]

Originally posted by VJ
The problem isn't that the game flies by too fast, it goes about as fast as your normal civI-game

No, it isn't. A normal civ2 or civ3 game was taking a few days to finish, while now I finish a game in a few hours. Now, admitedly there is less micromagement, but even so the difference is too big.

I believe the game has fewer turns than its predesessors, though I don't know the exact numbers.

-- it's that there are so many different units now which go obsolete so quickly. If you want to capture cities, you'll have to build massive amount of units, and by the time you've built them all, enemy has already upgraded his defenders. In civI, Cavalry unit, available from Horseback Riding, was a very potential unit until the discovery of automobile. How many of you use chariots until the discovery of tanks?

This is true. Combine this with a shorter game and voila, the game is over without being able to build (let alone use) half of the available units.

Sure, this forces you to make strategical choices: should I build this unit or maybe that unit instead? Or maybe a factory before? I think however that they went too far and the game is too quick for a regular civ player.

Oh, and epic games are no different. It is basically the same game, with faster units.

[Addled Platypus]

the bc years seem to go by slow initially

next thing I know I am in ancient

next thing I know- game over and 56 hours spent having fun

just one more hour !

[Nacht]

My experience is that I have more time to wage ancient and medieval wars than ever before. The riflemen age seems to go by too quickly however. I play epic.

[=DrJambo=]

One way to help this is to lower the cost of units. At the moment units take a similar amount of time to construct as buildings and so the owness is always on you to select the building. Unfortunately, time spent training units sets you back in the tech race and since there's so many buildings to construct there's never really an opportunity to spend time on units.

Lowering the cost of units universally can therefore make building them more viable as they won't impact as much on the ability to build the all-important city improvements like libraries, markets, etc.

Each leader has a % chance distribution on what they're going to build each turn and increasing the likelihood of them building a unit as opposed to a building might also help slow the tech race.

[LzPrst]

you should check out dearmads time+balance mod in the creation and files forum. I tried it and so far I'm in the classical era and I can actually choose to build and USE units far more than just regular games. love it!

[Brutus66]

I voted "sort of". I find I am in the classical age too fast for my liking, but that has something to do with the way I attack the tech tree. I tend to put the development of caravels on the fast track so I can circumavigate before the AI does, and going down one branch of tech at the expense of others makes the ages go by faster.

[soulfire777]

Yes, the tech part of the game advances faster than I would like.

I don't think Firaxis "sold out" however. There is nothing wrong with trying to please a broader audience. I suspect it would be very easy to MOD a slower tech advance rate as well.

[LzPrst]

a slower mod exists already.

but concerning sold out. what is civ? its a turn based strategy game. what do civ fans like? turnbased strategy games.

So firaxis has chosen to move away from what their fans love in order to make more money. thats selling out in my book.

[Adagio]

I voted no, because it feels like it takes as much time as Civ3 (I don't remember how long time a game took in Civ1/2), but on the other hand I would love to have the game take longer (like how you can mod a RoN to take 10 hours for a single game)

[Saldrin]

Actually I had some RON games take just as long as a standard Diplo/Space race game of civ 4.

I used to play RoN on the very expensive+slow techs setting and games would last a few hours for me. I would drag it out though because I love to fight wars in each era. Play on a very large map, with minimal civs.

Civ4 is such a rush. The leap to the Renn era is almost instantanious with the pyrmids and oracle. I usually try to found Christianity, and I haven't even built an axeman yet and gunpowder is almost an option by then.

To counter this, I added a lot to the modern era. I added subways and sewers ( not quite working as I inteded yet...) I also added tons of modern UU to other civs just to give me something to do.

Unfortunatly, my games usually turn out get to modern era, then focus on domination/conquest. I usually disable space race and diplomatic, and I always disable tech trading. Its ok, but it gets old fast.

I haven't tried any of the mods to correct this yet, because I've modded so much already, I fear I would have to start over. Which I probably should.... As it is now, the only use I get out of my pre-indust era units is fighting off barbs. The AI fights amongst itself, and they will ask me to join, but if I don't join I can coast right into modern era without a scratch.

[Sloth_DC]

Originally posted by dearmad
Yeah, but I modded it. Much more fun now for me.

Yah - first thing I did after playing an "Epic" game that just flew by was to go in and change the "Quick" game settings - Research time 500% normal, Buildings and turns 300% normal, units 200% normal. Is fun - eras actually last a while. Though with a scientific focus, you can get the tech race into the 5-10 turn range by the gunpowder era, with the faster production, you actually get to play in each age for a while. And lemme tell you - those early tech choices get _real_ important when you're looking at a 50-turn research cycle.

[teutonic_knight]

Does putting it on epic help that, as in slow down the progression of the game.

I don't like a game to last 5 days, but I would like it to last more than a few hours.

Perfect balance: Saturday from 1pm-10pm with noone bothering me but my stomach when it tells me I am hungry. One game of Civ IV to go please!

[Sloth_DC]

Originally posted by teutonic_knight
Does putting it on epic help that, as in slow down the progression of the game.

Epic slows the game down a little, but because the production times are scaled with the tech times, you still don't build more of each era's units - you just spend more time hitting the end-turn button.