Civ 4: The Game That Keeps on Giving!

[Hauptman]

My dream, has always been, a civ game at a grander scale.

Think Panzer General. But instead of a city just beeing a victory square, it becomes a civ city, your center of production, just like civi, but scale wise, much LARGER. and add in a very similar to PG combat system, with hard attacks, soft attacks defense values and strength, and now your getting into CiviGrognard, wich is my dream.

I dream of a civi game, that takes 3 months to play through, where strategic manuevers such as Pincer movements to engulf and cut off the enemy really mean something... where logistics has to be planned even more than just where to send your troops.

[Shaka II]

Originally posted by yin26
Well, Mali got situation by itself on a huge landmass, and I realized too late that Continents --as opposed to Highlands, which I had been playing exclusively-- really meant that unless somebody challenged him, there'd be no way I could win.

The downside of continent map, and space race. Space race is the only victory condition I disable now. It lets me catch up to that big guy on the other side of the map in the end game, without him taking off into outer space.

Originally posted by yin26
Once again, diplomacy proved interesting and fun. You *really* need to watch that moment at which the AI is "Annoyed" -- if you aren't ready for war, you'd better darn well get ready.

And if your army is really weak, you had might not even let a neighboring AI get cautious. Too much to resist.

Originally posted by yin26
And this is the thing that keeps drawing me back to the game: Sure, you might get lucky and draw a great map that lets you speed to victory with little thought, but there is some great interplay of map, resources, AI stances, tech, etc.

That's what keeps me playing too.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Originally posted by Hauptman
My dream, has always been, a civ game at a grander scale.

Think Panzer General. But instead of a city just beeing a victory square, it becomes a civ city, your center of production, just like civi, but scale wise, much LARGER. and add in a very similar to PG combat system, with hard attacks, soft attacks defense values and strength, and now your getting into CiviGrognard, wich is my dream.

I dream of a civi game, that takes 3 months to play through, where strategic manuevers such as Pincer movements to engulf and cut off the enemy really mean something... where logistics has to be planned even more than just where to send your troops.

While I probably wouldn't like such a game as much, I'd be interested to see a modded Civ resembling it

[yin26]

Another good example of Civ 4's shelf life in action:

I played a custom continents -- 6 civs each on its own continent -- on Prince, aggressive AIs and lost in a brilliant last-minute attack by Tokugawa.

I started a bit worried because I drew the artic landmass, which generally seems to give less workable land than other civs get. Ghandi, who I eventually found had the biggest landmass, got off to a huge start. Separated I was I from other civs by the ocean, however, I soon built an impressive kingdom but realized I'd need to take a bite out of Ghandi or he'd walk to a Space Race victory.

I launch a successful campaign against him, taking his capitol and 4 other cities. At this point, I was comfortably in the lead and decided to "wrap this thing up" with a Space Race victory of my own. I had "Friendly" status with Egypt (used religion and some gifts) but never got above "Cautious" with France or Japan (differing religions but still I have gifts to avoid war).

Anyway, I guess I got too far into "wrap up" mode because, although I easily repulsed an attack by France earlier on, Tokugawa was biding his time: A virtual battalion of his tanks land on my southern shore seemingly out of nowhere. I was perhaps 4 space ship parts away from winning, but I hadn't built up sufficient defense at home (was relying on other mechanisms such as diplomacy, etc.) and he ripped my biggest home cities down in quick fashion. I still had cities stolen from Ghandi, but Ghandi was now pressing me off his land, too.

I suppose I might still have eeked out the victory, but it was satisfying enough to see the AI cut me as I was close to the Space Race win. One more lesson in not turning off your brain in Civ 4! Mind you, I think Space Race is kind of a goofy way to win, but I've found that without it, you miss tense moments like this.

[Arrian]

Heh, I was playing a game as Toku last night, and fell into my usual builderish pattern (with a civ that really ought to be out conquering!). Napolean came knocking. First just 2 horse archers. Ok, I can deal with that. I kill them with spears. Then another 2. Dead meat. This is easy. Keep building that market. Keep building that temple.

Then the other shoe dropped: 5 HAs, 2 catapults and 3 axemen showed up and burned one of my better cities to the ground. A city I'd spent a great artist on, too. My land was meh, and I'd played poorly, and now I was down to 4 cities.

-Arrian