Thinking of giving up on Civ IV

[Mattimus20]

Son of David....

Try playing on Marathon mode (Warlords or Patch). Everything you just mentioned is the exact opposite with Marathon. You have enough time to do whatever you want.

[Solver]

Yeah. I can understand not liking the game speed, but that should be the last reason for giving up on Civ4. If none of the existing game speeds are your thing, you can easily customize your own. Give yourself more time in each era, or longer wars, or shorter wars, anything.

[Dis]

I'm not sure how many hours I've played, but I think I have played more civ4 than civ3. There is replayability. The game is just so much superior than civ2.

Makes me wonder why I played civ2 so much. I essentually played it the same way every time. I hated early wars in civ2. I always tried to avoid it. I loved it in the age of battleships, tanks, bombers, and yep, you guessed it... howitzers. True they were overpowered, but that's why I loved them.

I hated having no borders though. this is why I preferred to play the earth map as america. I hated starting too near an ai because they would always put cities within your cities.

[Bkeela]

Perhaps you need a break from the series for a few sequels or so. Civ II didn't interest me much, as it seemed just going through the motions of Civ I. Civ III was absolute garbage and unplayable for me.

Civ IV on the other hand has become a serious addiction. I can't get enough of it after almost a year of play.

[diemex]

I loved CIV2. I especially liked how easy it was to modify yourself without many 3rd party apps.

But CIV3 brought changes that for me are too important to go back to the older versions. ie: Stategic resources. Without oil you cant build armor... etc. That in itself is probably one of the best changes made to the series. (And yes the borders being respected is finally nice to see)

Still..... I miss CIV2 TOT where you had 4 'planets' going at once. That was fun.... but maybe a bit too much. My games got so long... I dont recall ever finishing a complete colonization of the Gas Giant.

Back on topic..... of the Civ games... (I had pretty much all of em) I find CIV4 to be the most enjoyable. I play it more than I did the others.... so they got something right.

[alms66]

Originally posted by Blaupanzer
Alms66 needs to play on a higher level to see AI SODs, feints, and unit-appropriate attacks.

Well, since it's been mentioned twice now, I'll let everyone know that I'm probably playing at the highest level I ever will in civ4. That's not the reason I haven't seen what you describe in AI behavior though, at least not the major part of the reason. I have seen the behavior in small doses, just never crushingly enough for me to really change anything drastic in my warfare.

I'm probably what most people would consider a "builder", though I don't label myself as such. I'm just not a warmonger. When I fight a war, there's always a reason behind it. I'm more of a "roleplayer" than that. I'll fight wars to gain critical resources or to gain strategic chokepoints or something like that, even fighting just to repay a previous AI attack sometimes, but never to increase my score, to "win", or any such silliness. It's always about the situation in the game.

Now, yes I know civ is just a game, and most games are made for one to win, but IMO, civ is in that class of games that are made for one to simply enjoy the experience. And, there's nothing fun about playing the higher levels, it's just work to me.

[CrONoS]

Marathon speed made me addicted again to this games.... And Arabs are so fun to play in Warlords!

[Jaybe]

Originally posted by alms66
I'm probably what most people would consider a "builder", though I don't label myself as such. I'm just not a warmonger. When I fight a war, there's always a reason behind it. I'm more of a "roleplayer" than that. I'll fight wars to gain critical resources or to gain strategic chokepoints or something like that, even fighting just to repay a previous AI attack sometimes, but never to increase my score, to "win", or any such silliness. It's always about the situation in the game.

Ditto, to a large extent, though not totally.

Late game I may attack to [i]increase my score, to "win", and such silliness.[i] I am learning to be more aggressive. My early-game aggressiveness is usually against barbarians, which is easy with praetorians.

[Foxhawk]

I've never liked civ games against ai, period. I only play multiplayer; can't beat interacting with the wit of a real person.

[MasterDave]

Originally posted by Dis
The game is just so much superior than civ2.

Makes me wonder why I played civ2 so much. I essentually played it the same way every time. I hated early wars in civ2. I always tried to avoid it. I loved it in the age of battleships, tanks, bombers, and yep, you guessed it... howitzers. True they were overpowered, but that's why I loved them.

I hated having no borders though. this is why I preferred to play the earth map as america. I hated starting too near an ai because they would always put cities within your cities.

I think one reason that older gamers (myself included, unfortunately ) have such fond memories of games such as Civ1, Civ2, Master of Magic, and Master of Orion 1 and 2 is that complex computer gaming was still fairly new in the early nineties, and we hadn't yet been inundated and de-sensitized with dozens of knockoffs and copycat games. The concepts, gameplay, and experieince offered by these games were still fairly novel to us. There also was not nearly as many competing products around a that time.

Now 15 years and hundreds (thousands?) of game releases later, any new game is inevitably going to get compared to the dozens of games in the "genre" that we have played previously. While playing civ4 or any new 4X game, experienced gamers are bound to think things like "Civ 4 has an interface just like Warcraft 3", "Rise of Nations has better pacing", "Call to Power 2 has more unconventional units", "Ages of Man has a better AI". Back in the days of Civ 1 and 2, there wasn't this massive basis for comparison and criticism that exists today, and we could delight in new experiences that we were having for the first time.

Sadly, a truly new type of game or gameplay is very rare today, as every game today is designed to fit neatly into one or two genres.

In terms of Civ 4 being addictive, the single player game was addictive for about eight or nine months after release. I played Civ1, 2, and 3 single players off and on for far longer periods of time. However, now I pretty much only play Civ4 Warlords multiplayer. One thing about multiplayer is that it is very hard to go back to playing the boring, predictable AI after playing some tense games against human competition.

[DaviddesJ]

Originally posted by killomatic

The lower difficulties are meant to teach, not challenge. Get out of them and your single unit stacks of doom will fail, unless it's praetorians.

Or trebuchets.

[MikeH]

Trebuchets only have strength 4 on defense, you have a stack of only trebs and the AI will tear it apart before you get to their cities faster than they would a stack of cats.

[Strudo]

Mixed arms is good because is saves your attacking units from damage before they get to their destination. A couple of pikemen in a stack will defend any mounted attack, so your axemen/swordmen are still fresh for the attack.

Are there any units that can reduce collateral damage to the stack? That could be a handy addition to the game.

(Edited cos I'm an idiot.)

[Dis]

In the early game SOD's still rule. though maybe not so much on harder levels.

Once I knocked out their iron, the Celts couldn't build any spearmen, and my all immortal force wrecked havic with their empire. 4 cities down, empire destroyed. For some reason these guys wouldn't capitulate.

[DaviddesJ]

Originally posted by MikeH
Trebuchets only have strength 4 on defense, you have a stack of only trebs and the AI will tear it apart before you get to their cities faster than they would a stack of cats.

You probably need a defensive unit or two with your trebuchets. But the AI doesn't really attack you as you're coming; worrying about a serious counterattack is unnecessary.