Does Civ 4 favour a warmonger?

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Velociryx
In my mind (and there are a lot of like-minded folk out there who lurk and post on the appropriate boards), a WAR game just isn't unless, at a bare minimum, it includes such things as:

[big long list follows]

Still, I wouldn't class either of those as a war game.

I haven't seen a GOOD wargame since People's General, unfortunately (which was a beauty....)

It's a dying breed.... They've moved too many of them to RTS clickfests, which utterly sucks.

-=Vel=-

Oh com'on. Your list excludes a whole bunch of classics, such as Third Reich, Panzer Blitz, and even Squad Leader.

[Velociryx]

On the contrary....the board games all those were based on are sitting on my shelf (well, actually they're packed now, but until a week ago, they were on my shelf), and they contain all the stuff I mentioned, PLUS a whole host of other details I didn't even get into.

I don't have access to the computer games made from them later, but one would imagine that if a company like SSI or any of the great grognard programmers (Beaver, Gaxby) had a hand in their development, then they would have held true to the core rules, as originally designed.

Anything less would be flat out blasphemy.

-=Vel=-

[Ijuin]

In Civ 4, you are somewhat limited in how big you can grow your empire as compared with earlier Civ versions, since big empires have extreme maintenance costs. You also have to deal with the city being unhappy at not being part of its home empire. I would like though to see an increase in a city's tendency to flip back to its previous owner if it is not garrisoned heavily--it should take some effort to hold onto your conquest at first.

[Hermann the Lombard]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger


Oh com'on. Your list excludes a whole bunch of classics, such as Third Reich, Panzer Blitz, and even Squad Leader.

Those worked well as board games, not as computer games.

[Shaka II]

Originally posted by Theseus

Does it favor the warmonger? Well, the game *is* supposed to have *some* relation to human history. Si vis pacem, para bellum!

But, Caesar wasn't a warmonger. He just wanted to spread Democracy, to enlighten the rest of the known world. That's all I do and they call me a warmonger.

[Hermann the Lombard]

And Napoleon:

Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité!

Crown myself Emperor!

Place my family on the vacant thrones of Europe!

Treat kings and tsars as vassals!

Retire to a nice island...

[Shaka II]

Fundamentally, Civ is a building game, but it's also a game of empire building, which involves conquest, as it did historically.

I think of Civ as an advanced combination of conquest strategy board games like chess and Risk, but including the aspects of civilization advances, culture, happiness, health, growth, wealth, resource control, trade, great people, and great civilizations.

So, Civ is a numbers game, since to do well, even at conquest, these concepts and their underlying relationships have to be understood well enough to maximize their benefits. It's that complex analysis coupled with diplomatic and strategic AI interaction within the context of empire building that draws me to the game. I gave up chess years ago, but I think Civilization will be here to stay. It's just more fun.

[Remulak]

I have been experimenting with going totally pacifist and going totally warlike. When I have gone Pacifist, I usually have a tech lead and get many wonders. But, I constantly am fending off attacks by powerful neighbors. Sometimes I win and sometimes I lose.

When I have gone warlike, I fall behind in techs as my empire struggles to assimilate the new cities. This makes it hard to keep up with other empires. It is hard when you have macemen going against grenadiers. I am playing a mod now that gives you some tech points from a captured city for a tech you don't have. This makes it easier being a warmonger and actually encourages you to go that route.

Brings back a lot of memories when I read conversations about the old Avalon Hill games. I spent a lot of time playing Blitzkrieg, Third Reich and Squad Leader. Still have them up in the attic.

[Shaka II]

That's always the problem. If you go too far in military conquest, ignoring buildings that have long term returns, and incurring greater maintenance costs, which force you to reduce your science rate, you fall behind.

There's a nice thread here on the proper rate to expand depending on the size of cities and traits such as organized or financial. Eventually, when achieving domination, 64% of the land area can be easily supported financially, though civs without organized or financial have to be more careful. The Persian game I just played, I finished pretty early (1336AD/marathon/emperor), but didn't expand quite as early as I would have if I was organized or financial. So, timing the expansion well, usually coupled with discovery of a key technology that gives you an edge, and fighting protracted wars is the way to go. Always staying even or slightly ahead in tech. Also, the advantages that tech bribes can yield are nice to provide assurance that things go your way.

[Generaldoktor]

Some nice comments here, even if I'm a couple days behind everybody putting my two cents in.

1. The basic question: The game is versatile enough to structure what you want. And what you want is usually what you get. Somebody said big wars are a lot of micromanagement, I pretty much agree; its all about taking cities and arranging my catapaults so I've got the right mix of city raider and collateral, bringing up the city raider mace-guys-Oh, didn't I upgrade that swordsman? Which promotion should I give Smedley there after that big Osaka battle? What are those horses doing over there? I need them over here!

Some days, I just don't want it. Let's hit custom game. I'm Asoka, we'll invite Qin, he never bothers anybody. How about Louis and Frederick? They might have been big imperialists in real life, but in this game, they're wimps. We'll throw in Tokugawa and Monty for comedy value, maybe the AI will knock them off and I won't have to; they can't shoot straight if there is a war. A few others maybe in similar ilk, Mansa and Hat will challenge me on tech, but I can beat 'em there, if I apply myself. And my good pal, Caesar. Butter him up right and I'll never see a Praetorian. Maybe he can do in Toku, while I build the Pantheon.

I want a big map, with lots of trees and rivers; going to work on my GPP today. How about a huge Pangea, temperate, Marathon? No raging Barbs for me today! "Aggressive AI" is certainly turned off. None of that space victory foolishness either. " If I wanted Mansa to win, I'd play Mansa. I'm going to tinker and toy with my perfect cities, for millennia...

Difficulty level counts a lot. I've settled on Noble. No cheats for them, no cheats for me (unless I reload ). As they are just dumb manifestations of an irrational machine, that is a little unfair, but they're not going to be goaded into mindless imperialism, which strikes me as not symbolic of the real world either. (Notice I said symbolic; it's a given that this game is not "realistic" as such.) Real imperialists, even dementos like Adolf and Boney, all have some reason to conquer, AI is 10 years away from having such motivation. I just want to feel good about myself today, build pretty cities, nice farms. I want to trade for bananas and get that 5000 gold by sending my GM on a Marco Polo-like tour. I want to kill animals with my clubs, not have them kill me; not even Teddy Bear.

I think there's a tendency by people on this board, because they have been playing so many years, to make it as tough on themselves as they can, to stave off boredom. I'm sure Caesar is a real bastard on Deity, especially with a small map where it's kill or be killed just to have room to put your outhouse in, but the way I structure my games, he never bothers me. There's "Aggressive AI," "Raging Barbs," "One City Challenge," all for the guys that want the kill. A lotta days, that's just not me and IMHO, I think the game system is flexible enough that you don't have to have it, unless you want it.

One game, I did structure it so I could "practice" war. I took Napoleon and put every "warmonger" AI personality I could think of in the game, hit "aggressive AI" and started building beaucoup axemen early. So far, I've still built a bunch of wonders and have a big "castle" on one continent. I put out Toku, Alex, Huyna and Genghis; I found out Bismarck is a closet wimp; Caesar is my buddy again, though he did grumble for a few turns when I attacked his friend Mao, (who doesn't even like him.) I probably could have provoked him, but didn't. I now have a giant military, but Peter keeps lurching ahead in tech. Game is almost over, but I have the big point lead, again. I think Peter's too big for me to put out, but I don't think he can put me out either, even if one of my "allies" joins him in betrayal. I ended up with a "peaceful" game anyway.

But I played it, again, on Noble. I think difficulty level probably has the most to do with whether you have a war-dominated game, map is second, whether you hit "Aggressive AI" is probably next. Raging Barbs surprisingly seems to give a more peaceful game among the AI, because I really do believe, despite denials in some threads, that the Barbs attack the AI A LOT when they're "raging." I would put AI personalities a distant fourth in deciding whether you have a "fightin'" game, because I think their actual personality is influenced by the difficulty level.

2. Civ as wargame? Civ4 may not necessarily be, but I think Civ3 was; though yeah, as a player of "classic" games, I think the combat mechanics left a lot to be desired. The pure, beautiful form that was Thamis' "Ancient Med" variant gave me many hours of combat excitement, despite the overall limitations of the system. (BTW, I don't think it will adapt as well to Civ4, though I understand he is still trying.) "Ancient Med" was all about combat, I never had a "builder" game in that puppy, though I built a fair amount of wonders to try to stay ahead militarily. I played everybody in that thing and loved it; Huns, Romans, Persians, Goths, "Troy," if it really existed; Scythians. It might not have been micromanagerial as far as combat mechanics, but that was war, baby!

3. "Classic" wargames. Name a title for a cardboard board game from the Sixties and Seventies, any title; and I probably had it, including some of the giant ones that would fill a room. On the other hand, my computer game buying has been much more selective, but more satisfying. (The dog no longer eats the Bismarck.) I am amazed that some of these boardgame titles may have been translated to computer; if "Squad Leader" was ever on computer, I better get on Ebay or somewhere to get it. Some of the games' mechanics suggest they would have adapted very well to computer.

I miss some of the old combat micromanagement, which made Civ's, which admittedly exists (see first paragraph above,) seem petty. But we are all big boys now and there just isn't time for some of the sandbox stuff anymore. At least I have my memories.