Damn this game is tough!

[Willem]

I've been playing Civ for years, but I'm really having a tough time doing well in this version. I always seem to be behind in techs, so I cut back on military to boost my research spending as much as possible. Which means I also end up being easy pickings for any rampaging civ.

Yesterday I was playing a game I felt I was doing well in, then along comes Isabel in her Caravel and she was way ahead of me in techs. Then later Roosevelt decided he liked a couple of my border cities and came in to take them. I fought off the attack from one of them, but the other fell in no time. And I wasn't able to counterattack since I had been cutting back on military spending.

But the more I get my ass kicked, the more I want to play. It's frustrating as hell, but it's a damn fine game which I'm enjoying immensely.

[xxFlukexx]

Yeah, I like the difficulty, in most strategy games if you use your units correctly and use good strategy you can win on the toughest difficulty fairly easily. While this high level of difficulty is going to frustrate a lot of players that are used to reading one article about civ3 and easily beating deity in one day, I think that the high difficulty means that you can happily play SP for a very long time.

The game is very tough because there isn't really anything that unbalancing to provde a large enough advantage to make you invincible.

In Civ2 and Civ3 I did the same thing every time, spread out a lot, researched the same tech path, built the same overpowered wonders, and attacked at the same time in the tech tree every game. With Civ4 errr it depends on a lot of things, that's why there's not many strategies or posts in the strategy section. For example, should you go for Liberalism/Economics or go for Chemistry, well that depends...

[Aro]

Well, everybody was asking and whinning for a tough, a better game in the last four years. CIV is that game.

I’m having my a$$ kicked in a regular basis. Just because I won a couple of games (warlord level ), I thought I was… Never mind. I'm loving this game!

Yes, I’m having fun!

[Willem]

The one thing I like about it is that every game is truly different. In Civ 3 I had sort of a formula that I followed and for the most part it worked. But in this game you really have to play by the seat of your pants. What works in one game may not necessarily work in another. It's all about finding the proper balance according to the current situation. And even though for the most part I've been doing the wrong things, I've been enjoying myself.

[Enigma_Nova]

Yes, it's not a game that a ****** can pick up and dominate.
That's probably why we see a lot of whining from gmesh1986, Medic911, StarLightDeath, mimi and the like.

[Bkeela]

On noble I get my assed kicked as much as I win. I'm slowly starting to learn that if you have Alexander or another aggressive leader as a neighbour, the culture/economic path is off limits.

I see myself progressing to prince level, but the thought of the higher difficulty levels send shivers down my spine. I'm sure it is possible to win a deity game, but the strategy to do so would surely have to be very confined and unnatural.

I'm far from complaining though. This is the greatest turn based strategy game ever conceived.

[Urban Ranger]

You should cut people some slack, with the exception of StarLightDeath

[Guynemer]

Originally posted by Enigma_Nova
Yes, it's not a game that a ****** can pick up and dominate.
That's probably why we see a lot of whining from gmesh1986, Medic911, StarLightDeath, mimi and the like.

That's our Nova. Never one to mince words.

[Willem]

Originally posted by Bkeela
I'm slowly starting to learn that if you have Alexander or another aggressive leader as a neighbour, the culture/economic path is off limits.

Unless you have Alexander start where he has in my current game. Just the two of us on a small continent and I've let him have all the tundra and ice he wants, while I take all the rest. He's begging me for Horses right now but I don't think that's an option.

[Enigma_Nova]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger
You should cut people some slack, with the exception of StarLightDeath

"Why can't I build a city there?"

[LordShiva]

Originally posted by Guynemer


That's our Nova. Never one to mince words.

That's why I voted for him.

[-Ab-]

i play on monarch
i am convinced the winning ai gives itself a tech every time you get one so it can stay 1 tech ahead and win a space race victory

[Zorkk]

Originally posted by -Ab-
i play on monarch
i am convinced the winning ai gives itself a tech every time you get one so it can stay 1 tech ahead and win a space race victory

LOL. That was my game last night! was just trying to get 1 tech the other 2 AI tech leaders didnt' have, so I could get the 3 they had I didn't. but nooooO! Had to build the internet to scoop em up! rofl.

I've been playing on monarch, and it's a good challenge. The start is so important I find. Make sure you grab those special resources ASAP! heh

Z

[Cort Haus]

Originally posted by -Ab-
i play on monarch
i am convinced the winning ai gives itself a tech every time you get one so it can stay 1 tech ahead and win a space race victory

Some of them go specialist crazy at the end. We know how the auto-workers like farming over towns - it's because the AI strat (esp for philo) is to run insane amounts of scientists to generate great scientists to keep popping techs for themselves. Six merchants in the Wall St city is common too, if there are enough food tiles. In my last game (Monarch) Peter had made 20 GPs by the time I snatched a UN win in 1840.

Spies are very revealing here. That babe is more useful than people give her credit for.

[Cort Haus]

In fact I went back and analysed some of that game with Worldbuilder. I wanted to see how Peter managed to build the Oracle in 1080BC and the Pyramids in 600BC both in Moscow. It turns out he pulled off a Farseer strat which went on to get him the Pyramids via a forge-driven Gt Engineer.

He took Metal casting from the Oracle in 1080 (Farseer), built a forge and started working an Engineer. By the time 100 GPPs were generated he had about 23% chance of an Eng and 77% chance of a Prophet. He got the Engineer and built the Pyramids the same turn. I might even try it.

The AI loves specialists - it starts running them wherever and whenever it can. Built a temple? Run a priest. Built a library? Run a scientist, or even better, two. Yet somehow they manage to quickly build all those units and buildings too. And grow.