Some thoughts and observations on the late game

[Son of David]

I have been playing a lot of Civ recently, and have been lucky enough to get a few games going all the way to the end of the tech tree.

1. The game can be incredibly fun when you actually get time to use units. This can be achieved by waging war against the most technologically advanced (not necessarily strongest) foes throughout the game. There is some kind of balance to be struck here - excessively waging war against technologically up-to-date (or superior) civs can ****** the rate of scientific progress, meaning that you are still using cavalry and grenadiers in the 20th century. That however is a more wholesome prospect than engaging in these horrible 'tech wars', where you basically just zoom right through the end of the tech tree and get a space race victory (or lose to one) without really getting a chance to experience late-game wars.

In a recent game I had an opponent far, far ahead in the tech race - he was using tanks by the mid 1800s. The only resolution was for me to invade with hordes of cannons and riflemen and to raze several of his big cities. Thankfully he had not traded his technologies and so I was able to catch up in the fullness of time, while he was relegated to fall behind. (By the way, the feeling of satisfaction I got as I rampaged through his empire, razing cities that had populations of millions - oh, is it so wrong to love genocide? )

I make no complaints here - this just furthers the point that you MUST wage war against opponents and do so in an efficient and efficacious manner. I.e., take out the richer and more advanced civs as opposed to those which simply have more landmass etc.

This allows for a decent endgame. I particularly love the combined-arms combinations - marines good for breaking into sea-cities, using your battleships to reduce the city defences, and then pouring your tanks and artillery into the conquered city. Then you can rebase all your bombers, fighters, etc - and get ready for a massive invasion!

2. Nuclear weapons. As they stand they are sufficiently powerful. My major complaint is the efficaciousness of the SDI and bomb shelters. Normally a nuke reduces a city to half-strength; with a cheap bomb shelter it reduces the city by about 12.5%. That in itself would be tolerable were it not for SDI which all but makes nukes worthless, intercepting with 75% probability.

Either these defences should remain this effective and nukes should be MASSIVELY upgraded or these defences should be downgraded. My suggestion would be that shelters reduce the damage by 50% and SDI have a 10% chance of intercepting a nuke. This latter option sounds to me, after using nukes extensively in my games, the far better one.

Another option I just thought about would be to enable spies to destroy bomb shelters. I regularly use spies in my games now and I couldn't live without them. I only wish we could have more than four, especially when there are more than four civs we wish to spy on.

3. Although it's possible to rebase one's airplanes into an ally's city, it's not possible to airlift a unit into an ally's city. I think this ability should be added.

4. Gifting troops to an ally really should increase your standing with them. I saved Asoka's backside in one game where I gave him about two-dozen modern armour, gunships, etc since I didn't not want to actually be at war with his aggressor. Asoka responded by continuing to refuse to vote for me in the UN!

5. I hate this bug which makes my units disappear when carrying out amphibious assaults. Can this please be fixed really quick?

6. Sometimes a probability of success is shown to be greater than 100%. This needs fixing. (In one case my battleship was shown to have a 133% chance of winning against a sleeping destroyer. My battleship actually lost the fight.)


Otherwise, the late game is fantastic with a whole range of options and possibilities. Other things I am sure Firaxis have covered, such as the need for tactical nukes, nuclear submarines, cruise missiles etc.

The most important thing is to allow yourself time to enjoy this part of the game, taken at a decent pace - which involves sound warfare in the preceding eras.

[Jeppson]

"That however is a more wholesome prospect than engaging in these horrible 'tech wars', where you basically just zoom right through the end of the tech tree and get a space race victory (or lose to one) without really getting a chance to experience late-game wars"

Thats the best point someone ever made on this forum. I think the ai are just to peaceful. This is very unfortunate since I think the ai are very good at invasions, both land and naval.

[proviisori]

You could turn on the Aggressive AI in custom menu.

[Jeppson]

Yes! I could. I havent played a single game since i got it without it and just as in civ 3 the aggressive ai option doesnt do much to increase the war frequency. The entire game feels like a long cold war were you try to keep the tech lead.

[Rook]

The late game for me seems to be less about war and more about securing victory. I play with the space race turned off, so I am usually trying for another kind of victory at that point. The effectiveness of warfare at the late game keeps me weary of starting any wars. Once those tanks and copters start tearing up your countryside, its hard to recover if the score is close and you have less than 100 turns to do it in.

[Son of David]

Originally posted by Rook
Once those tanks and copters start tearing up your countryside, its hard to recover if the score is close and you have less than 100 turns to do it in.

I find it quite exciting, having to secure my borders or if on an island to send ships into key positions to look out for an invasion. I too like Jeppson dislike endless periods of peace.

I was also thinking the other day that Civ4 could be doing with some good 20th-century-set scenarios, such as the WWII scenario that came with Civ2 (not so fond of the existing WWII scenario for Civ4). That was my first experience of Civ, and I remember the game coming to an exciting climax when I developed nuclear bombs and bombed Hitler into submission.

I really prefer my games of Civ to drag on and give me the full range of experiences, but maybe this is just my preference and not everyone's.

[Rook]

War is fun for me too, but the way late game war happens is just so fast and since you know the clock is ticking, it just seems pointless to wage war if you can avoid it.
I play on Marathon mode, and I'd love it if the game would go into half year and quarter year turns, even monthly. By 1900, the years are just ticking away, I am researching the last few advancements and looking for a way to "win" the game.

I hope there is a "Into the Future" Expansion for the game which adds about 25 future techs and maybe another 300 years onto the game. Then it wouyldn't seem so rushed at the end I think.

[Son of David]

Originally posted by Rook
War is fun for me too, but the way late game war happens is just so fast and since you know the clock is ticking, it just seems pointless to wage war if you can avoid it.
I play on Marathon mode, and I'd love it if the game would go into half year and quarter year turns, even monthly. By 1900, the years are just ticking away, I am researching the last few advancements and looking for a way to "win" the game.

I hope there is a "Into the Future" Expansion for the game which adds about 25 future techs and maybe another 300 years onto the game. Then it wouyldn't seem so rushed at the end I think.

I have a few suggestions based on some of my recent games.

By far and away the best method for dealing with civs that are racing through the tech tree (despite being half the size of your own empire) is to 'prune' them. First off you NEED to get Communism and put spies in enemy territory as quickly as possible because you need to know how fast their cities are producing things, how quickly they are researching, etc.

Race to industrialism and combustion and fill up at least half a dozen transports with marines, artillery, and tanks. You will need battleships to protect the transports and for bombardment.

Your aim is to pick off the civ's large coastal cities - bombard the defences with the battleships, 'suicide-mission' your artilleries amphibiously (this will do collateral damage) and then pick off the beleaguered defenders with the marines. If you do this right, and as long as your opponent has no better defenders than infantry/SAM infantry, your marines should be able to kill the defenders from amphibious assaults with 80-95% probability.

Take out 3 or 4 (depending on map size maybe more) cities and RAZE them - this basically STOPS your opponent getting any further in the tech tree. It cripples them entirely.

You may need to do this for 2 or even 3 opponents - I myself only play on standard maps because they take me long enough, usually at least 8 hours. I find that this is the only way to stop opponents making my end-game seriously unfun.

In my most recent game my opponents have taken umbrage to this strategy and I'm being attacked on all corners - needless to say it's amazingly good fun, and I'm getting a chance to make good use of all my units.

In sum: get Communism early and plant spies; and get marines as soon as possible. Rape and pillage technologically advanced opponents throughout the earlier game as much as you can. You want to be heading into the modern age well in the lead if possible.