How to play just one era?

[gunny123]

Can anyone tell me how to stop tech advancement? If I want to play a game and have some battles that do not progress to the modern era, like a game with only ancient units or something.

[The diplomat]

my guess is that you'd have to mod that.

[Nikolai]

Indeed you must.

[sovietwaffle]

If you don't feel like modding play an epic game, it'll give you much more time to move around which is when of the main problems of early warfare.

[MattPilot]

I also kinda miss the option to just play one era.

[gilfan]

check out this utility

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=140264

You can use it to alter the tech costs by era. I.E. leave ancient tech costs alone, double classical tech costs, quadruple industrial tech costs, etc. You can use to to expand the duration of the game to suit your personal tastes.

If you expand the tech costs drastically, though, I recommend you play without time victory condition, or edit the appropriate text file to add a few hundred turns to the game.

[Axxaer]

I don't see why the game didn't come with the option to play limited eras. (Almost) eveyone has their favourites era/s and will often want to play a game or two limited just to these so that they can have fun expanding and concquering without having to worry for techs.

We can always hope for either an effective mod (maybe exists already?) or its addition to a patch/expansion.

[gunny123]

Sweet, thanks for the info. I play on epic now but would still like longer games.

[gilfan]

btw, you could use that utility to do what you want, sort of... just multiply the tech costs of the era you DON'T want to reach by 10000 or something, and play a custom game starting in the era in which you want to play.


just be sure to save a backup of the original text file that this utility modifies, so you can go back to base costs when you want to.

[gunny123]

When i use that Utility it shows all my folders in the Civ4 directory as empty. When I go to my C: drive and open it up they still show as nothing is inside them. Is there some setting I can turn on to see the files inside the Civ4 folders?

[gilfan]

Assuming you installed to the default directory, the file you need to edit is in C:\Sid Meier's Civilization 4\Assets\XML\Technologies


If you want to change the number of turns in a game (for instance, you're playing a scenario and cannot turn off the time victory), go to D:\Sid Meier's Civilization 4\Assets\XML\GameInfo, make a backup of the CIV4GameSpeedInfo.xml file, open the original with a text editor, and look for this line...

edit: there are brackets around iTurnsPerIncrement instead of parentheses, but if i include the brackets the forum reads it as html and doesn't display them.

(iTurnsPerIncrement) 200 (/iTurnsPerIncrement)


The 200 is how many turns you spend going 1 year at a time at the end of the game, before time victory kicks in. If you change that 200 to 1000, for isntance, you'll add 800 turns/years to the end of the game.

[gunny123]

I'm running windows XP, I can find the Sid Meier folder under the Documents and setting /my games but I not able to find it on the C: drive. I have all the folders you listed but when i open them nothing is inside. I can see the guys screen shot that there should be 4 files inside the Technologies folder. Mine is empty. For some reason I can not see the files inside.

[gilfan]

Right-click the shortcut you use to start civ and click properties. the "target" line will tell you where civ is installed

[gunny123]

That brings me to a file with the .exe start up icon and two read me files. I'm sure i'm in the right place with all the folders but they are just empty. For some reason whats inside is hidden.

[Enigma_Nova]

Here's a hint: You have to install the game, and have the computer turned on first.