A Few Concerns

[Skybird]

Hi all

Having just played a game on epic, as a Japanese ruler, i really feel i have learned a lot about CIVIV which i didn't know before; it took just 10 hours and 30 minutes to win a space race victory, but only just!

Some things I have noticed though which are annoyances more than issues; food for thought for the designers on a future update perhaps, or room ofr discussion?

(Not in any particular order)

1) Helicopters cannot go over water -why? They should also be able to be loaded on carriers

2) The workers seem to congregate in the capitol city if they don't have anything left to improve - but it is not clear if they have to be reactivated when something new comes along. Also, when they give up on improvements, surely they could be building forts on vulnerable resources?

3) The space victory video didn't play - it showed the first few frames, then just continued with the music.

4) The nukes will not fire on certain tiles - cities, or tiles bordering cities - why? My opponents didn't have SDI.

5) Bombers cannot be loaded onto any sea unit I have found? I had to found a new city close to where I wanted to attack, but there seems to be no logic to a re-base mission - I would have thought you needed an airport for a re-base, but apparantly not!

6) Throughout the game, I found myself very low in all cities on hammers - can anyone advise how this can be improved? After I built improvements (forge, factory etc), they were still very, very low on the whole continent!

7) The hall of fame should have a roll-over explanation of the names you are rated against - most are familiar, but Lech Welasa etc; may need additional explanation

8) The end of game playback still had the fog of war on certain areas of the map - surely it should all be revealed for the playback?

9) I am still unsure as to whether a stack of units attacking when grouped is better than as individuals - perhaps someone can enlighten me?

10) There should be an upgrade available to increase the number of units a transport or carrier can hold.

I did notice, for the first time however, that damage to units show up as a degrading of the image concerned - tanks start to show battle scars, for example - way cool!

I would be interested in your feedback...great game though!

Regards
Skybird

[Dr,ape]

6. found your cities near hills, forests, or better yet hills with forest on top

9. No.

10. mod the xml

[LDiCesare]

1) Design choice.
2) There's little point in building forts unless you place them yourself. It may be better in some cases to disband some of the workers instead of letting them on auto when they have nothing left to do as they may be costing money and doing nothing.
4) Nukes can't target places where there are friendly nuits or tiles. I'm not sure whether it's just the target plot or all the surrounding ones too.
6) Build mines on hills, lumbermills in forests, winf and watermills.
7) Lech Walesa should sound familiar if you know a little about Poland. Look up the names in the wikipedia for instance.

As for 1,5,10, you can probably try to change the xml files, but I'm not sure whether all you'd like can be done that way.

[Feyd]

Re: A Few Concerns

Originally posted by Skybird
1) Helicopters cannot go over water -why? They should also be able to be loaded on carriers

These aren't skimpy little news choppers we're talking about. This is an attack squadron of Apaches. Despite their amazing firepower, they don't move fast enough to deal with the impressive defenses of modern warships so they don't attack other sea vessels. Not to mention that they are highly susceptible to wind currents and so flying over water is hit and miss. Notice... you can put choppers on transports.

These aren't the CIV III helicopters that which simply made all infantry into paratroopers. These are (finally) what the helicopter should be in a military game. Modern Calvary units. Highly maneverable and made to take out less maneuverable targets with their speed. I do think that the same tech that brings helicopters should add +1 movement/ignore terrain movement penalties to all infantry based units though.

2) The workers seem to congregate in the capitol city if they don't have anything left to improve - but it is not clear if they have to be reactivated when something new comes along. Also, when they give up on improvements, surely they could be building forts on vulnerable resources?

They'll reactivate if something better comes along, but the computer is sometimes in favor of the status quo. Also, check and see if you have (automated workers leave old improvements) turned on. If that is the case then those mines you put up before you had windmills are going to be there until you do something specifically about them.

Personally, I either go with no automation or automate with the "leave improvements" option on and have a roving team that does my "touch up" work. I recommend turning a few workers on to "Build Trade Network" because they'll make all the roads and railroads for you so you can focus on "real" improvements.

3) The space victory video didn't play - it showed the first few frames, then just continued with the music.

Can't help you there. Whenever I won by space victory I had my video play. Did you press anything during playback? The videoes close easilly IIRC.

4) The nukes will not fire on certain tiles - cities, or tiles bordering cities - why? My opponents didn't have SDI.

Never had this problem either. Of course I've set of a total of one nuke and that was a test of my first one to see the beautiful cloud before I reloaded from a "pre-apocalyptic" savegame.

5) Bombers cannot be loaded onto any sea unit I have found? I had to found a new city close to where I wanted to attack, but there seems to be no logic to a re-base mission - I would have thought you needed an airport for a re-base, but apparantly not!

Nope. Bombers never should have been able to be loaded on sea units. Ever heard of the Dolittle raid? Pretyt much to qualify as a bomber a plane has to be too large to use a carrier.

As for rebase, you could always rebase without an airport. You don't need an airport to cut down a 300 yard stretch of jungle Just ask my Grandpa... that's what they did on Iwo Jima.

6) Throughout the game, I found myself very low in all cities on hammers - can anyone advise how this can be improved? After I built improvements (forge, factory etc), they were still very, very low on the whole continent!

I think hammers are lower in general in this incarnation of Civ. Build times seem a bit longer, but it is not a big deal because you CAN get a huge amout of hammers if you really work at it. Leave some forests (for lumbermills) on your flatlands, mine your hills, set up workshops and watermills on your flatlands (next to rivers on the latter), and build up some food resources to make priest and engineer specialists.

Don't do this in all of your cities though. You really need to balance production with other factors (such as commerce) in this Civ.

7) The hall of fame should have a roll-over explanation of the names you are rated against - most are familiar, but Lech Welasa etc; may need additional explanation

Heh... Not up to snuff on the Eastern European Solidarity movement??? For shame!!! Some would argue that Lech is more responsible for the fall of the Soviet Union than Regan.

8) The end of game playback still had the fog of war on certain areas of the map - surely it should all be revealed for the playback?

I'm not following... Do you mean the unexplored (black) areas? Fog of war doesn't really matter that much in the final turn by turn playback though does it?

9) I am still unsure as to whether a stack of units attacking when grouped is better than as individuals - perhaps someone can enlighten me?

All stack attack is in Civ IV is that one unit attacks then the next one attacks and so on. It just keeps you from having to attack with catapult 1, then catapult 2, then catapult 3, etc. Just group them and attack and they'll attack until they've all gone or they've routed the enemy.

10) There should be an upgrade available to increase the number of units a transport or carrier can hold.

You can edit this, but why? Yes it makes for an easier time of things, but that's part of the challenge. Now you have 10 transports instead of 5. Really makes it seem "Epic"

Regardless, in game we're talking about potentially thousands of troops per SINGLE unit in the game. That's a unreasonable sized vessel if you're placing 8 units on it. (Yes, I understand that there could be more transports than the one visible as well, but sea vessels in the game are meant to be single units IMO) :P

Also... think of the converse... do you really want the AI dropping 8 units per transport off your coast?

Hope that helps some

[Willem]

Re: A Few Concerns

Originally posted by Skybird


9) I am still unsure as to whether a stack of units attacking when grouped is better than as individuals - perhaps someone can enlighten me?

I don't think it really matters, it's just a matter of convenience. As a stack, they're still attacking individually, except that you don't have to give orders to each unit. Putting them in a group just gives you the convenience of not having to do it all at once.

[Solomwi]

The only way in which it matters is that the computer determines the battle order, where many players can probably, when attacking individually, wring a little better chance of ultimate victory out of the stack, or at least fool themselves into thinking they did.

On workers building forts over resources, it's been my experience that forts and resource-specific improvements don't co-exist, so this strikes me as a really bad idea.

[Willem]

Originally posted by Solomwi
The only way in which it matters is that the computer determines the battle order, where many players can probably, when attacking individually, wring a little better chance of ultimate victory out of the stack, or at least fool themselves into thinking they did.

Point taken, though it doesn't matter to me. I always group unit types together. So instead of 5 Knights attacking, I'll have one stack of them. And I tend to give them all the same promotions as well. It may not be the best way to wage war but it certainly is the most convenient.

On workers building forts over resources, it's been my experience that forts and resource-specific improvements don't co-exist, so this strikes me as a really bad idea.

That's true. I tried building a Fort over a Farm, and the Farm was destroyed.

[Solver]

Forts destroy anything else in the tile. So, build a fort on a resource = lose your resource-gathering improvement.

Bombers on carriers would actually be very unrealistic. No planes that are truly bombers can be put on carriers. This includes the modern B-2s or B-52s or the earlier Heinkel or Gotha bombers. Carriers used to have fighters, now they have fighters, fighter-bombers (basically jet fighters on steroids) and maybe dive bombers, not sure about this one.

[Enigma_Nova]

Re: A Few Concerns

Originally posted by Skybird
1) Helicopters cannot go over water -why?

They're land units.

2) The workers seem to congregate in the capitol city if they don't have anything left to improve - but it is not clear if they have to be reactivated when something new comes along. Also, when they give up on improvements, surely they could be building forts on vulnerable resources?

Building a fort will raze the Plantation/Farm/Mine/Etc.

3) The space victory video didn't play - it showed the first few frames, then just continued with the music.

So?

4) The nukes will not fire on certain tiles - cities, or tiles bordering cities - why? My opponents didn't have SDI.

They aren't going to fire in a place that will harm your own units.

5) Bombers cannot be loaded onto any sea unit I have found? I had to found a new city close to where I wanted to attack, but there seems to be no logic to a re-base mission - I would have thought you needed an airport for a re-base, but apparantly not!

Carriers typically can't carry the resources needed to rearm bombers.
The Airport improvement represents a well-developed airport with regular flights. Any city can make a 3 mile long patch o dirt.

6) Throughout the game, I found myself very low in all cities on hammers - can anyone advise how this can be improved?

Slavery, Universal Suffrage, Engineers, Workshops and Priests with Angkor Wat.

7) The hall of fame should have a roll-over explanation of the names you are rated against - most are familiar, but Lech Welasa etc; may need additional explanation

Agree.

8) The end of game playback still had the fog of war on certain areas of the map - surely it should all be revealed for the playback?

No.

9) I am still unsure as to whether a stack of units attacking when grouped is better than as individuals - perhaps someone can enlighten me?

The CPU is stupid about who attacks first, so no.

10) There should be an upgrade available to increase the number of units a transport or carrier can hold.

It's called the "Build more Transports and Carriers" upgrade.

[Skybird]

Thanks all, i appreciate the replies.

Off to play again!

Regards
Skybird

[MadDjinn]

about Stack attacks...

pre-1.52 when I had a stack, it would piuck the single best one to attack with and attack. Then I had to tell the stack to attack again, and repeat...

Is the stack just supposed to go one after another, and not have me constantly tell it to attack?

post-1.52 I have to weed out the units that have already fired (or ran out of movement) before attacking with the stack again. and repeat everytime I attack...

anyway to get around that?

[Dis]

Heh... Not up to snuff on the Eastern European Solidarity movement??? For shame!!! Some would argue that Lech is more responsible for the fall of the Soviet Union than Regan.

Is that name spelled right? I'm not finding him on Wikipedia.

edit: I think I found it. They use some weird symbols instead of the american alphabet!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lech_Wa%C5%82%C4%99sa

[Diadem]

What really annoys me about the combat system is this:

Imagine you have 5 units and you attack 5 other units. You win all battles (w00t). Your first 4 units however will spend their movement point on attacking, and remain where they are. The 5th will win the battle and move. Now your stack is suddenly split.

That's so annoying. If you attack with a single stack all units in the stack should move over to the next tile.

[Dis]

or keep it the old civ2 way and have them stay where they are. I never liked the fact they move into the tile...

[Enigma_Nova]

Having them stay where they are is good with me, too.
Prevents a Draughts-type system whereby you could lure the enemy out into a vulnerable position.