Disappointed with the end game

[damarcus]

I think for the most part Civ IV is a great game. But I was a little disappointed by the end game which focused a lot on land wars as opposed to air battles.

In Civ IV, the jets and bombers are prevented from completing taking out military units -- the most you can do is get the health down to 50%. So it really boils down to tank wars and "helicopter" wars (I put that in quotations, b/c the helicopter in Civ IV isn't really airbone, but behaves like a weird land unit).

Also, the game lacked the variety of units I expected. The stealth bomber is in a lot of respects the standard bomber with a longer range, and the same goes for the jet fighters.

Did anyone else find the end game to be somewhat lacking?

[Dis]

I find the space race to be lacking. Apollo can be built too early, though this is necessary since space ship parts are too expensive.

Air power does need to be beefed up to reflect real world conditions. but the did this for game balance reasons (first person to flight and radio would wipe everyone else out).

[Dauphin]

Warplanes alone have never won wars. I think it only right that its the same in the game.

[Diadem]

In the real world, planes can't really destroy a unit either. They can do heavy damage to for example a squadron of infantry, but completely destroy it? There's always a few who can take cover in time.

If used right air units are extremely powerful in civ. You can use them to exactly know where all the enemy units are all the time - a major advantage. Futhermore you can take out tile improvements - even heavily defended ones, though in that case you might suffer some casualties. Take out their aluminium and oil and you've already almost won the war already.

Furthermore you can use them to bomb cities. This means you don't have to bother with those slow-moving low-strength artillery units anymore. This dramaticly increases the speed of your armies.

And finally you can bomb units with them. Sure, you don't kill them, but you can take them down to 50% health. Even city garrison III mech infs are easy prey once they are taken down to 50% health.

All in all, air units are real killers.

You can counter them by spamming SAM infantries. Which is good, otherwise air units would really be way overpowered. But even SAM infantries do not offer a perfect defence. And having lots of them is rather expensive.

I dare to say that in Civ4 late-game wars are won or lost in the air.

[Dis]

Usually I don't start a war when I get flight, but last game I did (I was attacked actually).

Having fighters when your opponent doesn't have them (or sam infantry) is sweet. Fighters don't seem to suck as much as in civ3. I just realized this. It takes a lot more of them than bombers though to take down enemy defenders to 50%. At the end of the war, I had 15 fighters. Simply put, my gunships and infantry weren't strong enough to crack cities, but with fighters they could. At the very end of the war I finally got tanks. But I would have won without them.

[Diadem]

I agree that the space race is lacking. But not for the reasons Dis mentions.

The space race needs a delay again, like in the old civs. They launced before you? No problem, take out their capital. That was much better then the current system, where you begin building a spaceship in 1900 and then have to wait for techs to build the rest.

Spaceship parts are not too expensive. They are in fact so cheap that their buildtime is irrelevant. Not that they are really cheap, they are just cheap compared to the time it takes to research the techs needed for the next part. I've lost spaceraces where I built much faster then the AI, only because I had to spend 20-30 turns doing nothing because I lacked the final tech.

Right now, whoever gets the final required tech first wins the race - unless the cap is just one or two turns, in which case the runner up might just make it. Of course there's always the odds of the AI building that final part in some backwater village, but that's AI stupidity and not part of a real spacerace

The Spacerace should start later, and have less required techs - so that who wins it is determined by how fast you can build, and not by who gets that final tech first.

[Nubclear]

I enjoyed how, in Civ2, one could win the spacerace even if the opponent had launched by building a better ship.

[Strudo]

I think there are too many ways to win before getting to the final techs. I'm not sure I have ever researched some of the techs since at that stage I'm going for the space win and don't need them. The space win should require all techs to be completed so that there is some reason to actually get them.

[johnmcd]

I think even the addition of something like a garrison advisor would be handy, just getting all your defences balanced can take forever but a little AI module that just balanced up your armies would be very handy.

[Diadem]

I recently won a space race with only one tech missing: Flight.

Kind of funny. I can build an elevator into space, I can launch a space ship to alpha centauri.. But I've never even heard of airplanes

[Saurus]

Endgame is not nearly as fun as early or mid-game. However, I try to comeare Civ IV to Civ III.

The endgame of Civ III was just plain horrible!
I only managed to play one (1) game all the way to the end in Civ III and even then I really, really had to force myself to do it. It was that boring as there were actually nothing else to do than to pump out another tank for hundreds of hundreds of turns. (a builders worst nightmare)

In Civ IV, there are intresting and meaningful choises to be made all the way up to the end and the sence of urgency are still present in a similar manner than in early game. So compared to earlier Civ-games, the endgame in Civ 4 is much, MUCH better. The Civ IV-staff actually deserves a big praise here for making the endgame intresting and playable for a builderminded player.

I actually now can play as a builder from beginning all the way to the end whitout getting bored and that has never before been the case with any earlier civ.


As I see it, the biggest problems with endgame is:

I) Space-race. It is better than in Civ 3 but not as good as in CIV 1 & 2.

II) U.N is irrelevant and an compleatly unintresting addition to the game. It has the potential of becoming a relevant and intresting factor but needs to be heavily reworked.

III) Some techs and late buildings meaningless. (mainly the Supermarket)
I have to date also never built an airport ( I wonder what it does...) By the time I get the tech, I´m mostly only a few turns from winning (or losing) the space-race victory.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Comrade Tassadar
I enjoyed how, in Civ2, one could win the spacerace even if the opponent had launched by building a better ship.

Wasn't there a bug that meant you would always win if you launched, even if the opponent had a better ship?

[Diadem]

Supermarkets are not useless. They give health for some of the most common food resources. Very useful if you're lacking health. Though I guess in many situations you won't need any additional health, or you will only need it for your biggest few cities. Still, they aren't useless.

And airports are extremely useful buildings. They give +1 traderoutes, which is always good, but more importantly they give the ability to airlift units. This completely changes the meaning of the words 'defence' and 'offence'. You can get units from one side of your empire to a besieged city at the other side instantaniously - saving that city.

[Diadem]

Overall I think the lategame is quite a lot of fun. Late game wars are very entertaining. Their only problem is the amount of micro-management. Which is caused by empire sizes, I guess. And with two different builder victories (spacerace and diplomatic) that side is covered as well.

However there's room for improvement. Both air and naval combat can be improved on. And the space race can be improved as well. And the UN certainly needs improvements. But overall it's okay.

One thing I'd like is for the tech tree to go a bit further into the future. The space race should only be enabled once you build the space elevator. The Apollo Program could be given another function (for example giving you an GPS like power).

And you shouldn't be able to build a space elevator with Robitics. That's ridiculous. You need Carbon Nano-Tubes and Superconductivity for that. So add those two as new techs. And add techs like Quantum Theory and Nano-Technology as prerequisites.

I think civ4 techs should be realistic ones. No faster than light drives or stuff like that. But the above mentioned techs are realistic, and they are certainly inventions we'll be seeing in the next couple of decades. And you can think of a couple of more techs to include in the late game. Also none-engineering ones. Because after facism all the techs have to do with engineering, which is a shame.

[Strudo]

I've never built the UN, or been in a game where anyone has built the UN. I couldn't even say if it's any good. Game is always finished before it really needed