Sid Meier's Civilization IV still begins with a settler unit and a military unit.

[MarkG]

i saw the light

What strikes you first about this latest release is how little it has changed from its predecessors. Sid Meier's Civilization IV still begins with a settler unit and a military unit. The challenge still remains to build cities and expand your territories before your rivals.

more like that

http://www.gameplanet.co.nz/mag.dyn/Reviews/2962.html

[Ecthy]

What's your point? Earlier games started with srttler only and no military?

[Blake]

Ah! Gameplanet NZ.

and a slower speed for those that prefer a more pedestrian pace.
More like a meat grinder .

As mentioned earlier, the game is all about claiming as much territory as possible - as quickly as possible


As units rest, train and battle they gain experience that can be applied to unit promotions.
Apparentely, I've failed to research the tech that allows my units to gain exp while chilling out...


It's not bad but I get the feeling he hasn't fully explored the game. Judging the book by it's covers, so to speak.

[MarkG]

Originally posted by Ecthy
What's your point? Earlier games started with srttler only and no military?

i should have put a cute smiley somewhere in my post

[Ecthy]

It isn't that bad though.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Blake
As mentioned earlier, the game is all about claiming as much territory as possible - as quickly as possible

I haven't tested the game on the really high levels, though it seems that early land grab still makes sense. Not in the least is you get a better chance of gaining access to special resources that will only be revealed later.

It seems that ICS still works, just use a less extreme form.

[MattPilot]

It seems that ICS still works, just use a less extreme form.

Q about ICS.

Is ICS, or infinit city sprawl, the act of expanding really fast (via settler pumps or what not), or is it the act of placing a city in every possible location to work the most amount of tiles on the map, regardless of the pace its being done at?



The thing is, you can grab land quite fast without placing a new city. Culture would do the trick. I often have cities with 5-6 squares aound it and enemy cities on the boarder. I strive to build great cities

As for placing a city in every possible corner of the earth to work the most amount of tiles, i'd say it works only up to a point. And that point is reached once the gain of working commerce tiles doesn't produce enough commerce to cover the maintence cost in the new (and old) cities.

On my current game on noble, i have 6 cities. Placing a new one would bring my maintence cost up by roughly ( 6 for new city +1 for each old city = ) 12 gpt. In essence, to cover this cost without city improvements, i'd need a city center square, at least 1 grassland, and 2 plains which would all have hamlets. This setup alone would cover the cost of the new city. Now add in an additional square or the civic merc and you got a "benefit" from that new city.

So as long as you can find enough tiles for each city to cover the cost of the new city + increase costs, ICS still works, no?

[Bill3000]

Is ICS, or infinit city sprawl, the act of expanding really fast (via settler pumps or what not), or is it the act of placing a city in every possible location to work the most amount of tiles on the map, regardless of the pace its being done at?

ICS is usually meant to mean both.

[Blake]

People are missing the point about ICS. Historically ICS is a low cost expansion strategy, cities provided a high return on investment.

The difference with Civ4, is that ICS, while possible, is actually an EXPENSIVE strategy rather than low cost. You need heavy investment in courthouses, a forbidden palace etc. Take it too far and you'll be sucking up a good proportion of your empires commerce on upkeep alone. I believe that city count also further increases the upkeep of civics, and also increases the anarchy period. Yet it's remarkably well balanced, expansion is neither desirable to the point of being essential, nor expensive to the point of being infeasible.

In Civ2/SMAC, cities paid for themselves.
In Civ4, you pay for cities!

(Sorry, couldn't work in a "In soviet russia..." joke)

[Bill3000]

Why not?

"In soviet Russia, cities pay YOU!" Oh... wait. Pah. Doesn't work.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Blake
The difference with Civ4, is that ICS, while possible, is actually an EXPENSIVE strategy rather than low cost. You need heavy investment in courthouses, a forbidden palace etc. Take it too far and you'll be sucking up a good proportion of your empires commerce on upkeep alone.

Not that expensive.

First, you can no longer crank out Settlers like mad. In all likelihood you want to give each one an escort so a barbarian couldn't pop up and say "surprise!"

Second, I have already mentioned "a less extreme form." You still want to expand fast, but you can do so by spacing your cities further apart and let your cultural influences fill in the gaps. Also, expand in the direction(s) of other civs and leave land behind to come back to later.

Third, you probably don't have that much room to expand into anyway, unless you are playing Pangea or something like that on huge map.

[joncnunn]

Not to mention that both worker and settler build costs have dramaticly gone up in Civ IV compared to Civ III. (Even after factoring in the surplus food converted to shields to help those builds)

[Josquius]

I do dislike the thing about Civ and all other strategy games that more territory instantly means a more powerful nation. Its only in very modern times that this has begun to hold somewhat true.

I don't get how you have to pay for city upkeep in Civ 4 too. I mean you send some settlers off to a little island somewhere and they make a city- why should this cost you anything in the long run? Maybe a foundation cost yes but in the long run they can grow their own food, chop their own wood. Look after themselves.

[MattPilot]

Originally posted by Josquius


I don't get how you have to pay for city upkeep in Civ 4 too. I mean you send some settlers off to a little island somewhere and they make a city- why should this cost you anything in the long run? Maybe a foundation cost yes but in the long run they can grow their own food, chop their own wood. Look after themselves.

civic upkeep; paying government employees; Paying state run programs; Paying for public programs; etc...


Of course the cities can 'run' on the long run, and they do. First they make very little GPT, then they make a lot. But the costs to run all gov't functions are still there.