Game question

[d=me]

1st, how long do games tend to last? Is this a "streamlined" kind of game where it's over in a few turns, or is it like Alpha Centauri where games can stretch out for a very long time?

Secondly, is there anywhere to get civ 4 today? All I see are the gold edition, I don't need warlords, just Civ4 and Beyond the swords.

[Virulent]

The game speed is selectable so you can have games that can last just a few hours or games that can take the better part of a week or longer.

I think Civ 4 Gold is now the standard version of Civ 4 and it costs the same (or perhaps is even cheaper) than Civ IV on its own. You could always get Civ IV on its own (and BtS as well) on Steam.

[d=me]

Is the version from Steam compatible with the regular patches? Or are they like the D2D ones where normal patches don't work?

How many turns does a game approximately take? Like do ages progress slowly or really quickly?

[Supr49er]

On marathon speed (slowest) the five ages last quite a while. Depending on the map size and number of opponents, a game could well take 40+ hours.

[Theben]

There are 4 settings in BtS: Quick, normal, epic, and marathon. All are made to feel as though you are playing thru the "full sweep of history", but marathon is reeeeeeaally long.

[d=me]

How does this game compare to galactic civilizations?

I was turned off by this series because of it "simpleness", like how abstract it is. That's why I have never tried any of them.

[snoopy369]

I doubt you could call Civ4 simple, but to be honest post-Civ2 I don't think that has been a fair characterization, so perhaps your definition of simple is not mine

In normal, there are 520 turns. Turns early on go quickly; by turn 300 you are taking usually a significant bit of time per turn (5 minutes maybe) and by turn 450 if you've not won yet you are usually taking 20-30 minutes per turn; more or less depending on how micromanagery you are.

D2D and Steam both have their own patches; however, they've been very good about always coming out within a day or so of other patches, so don't worry about that. With Civ it's very simple for them to do the patches for the digital versions, as it's just a very slight difference in the final compilation.

Most people play 'normal' games in probably 10-12 hours, maybe a bit more. People who prefer longer games often play 'marathon' games that take weeks to finish - like 40-50 hours of gameplay I think. (Marathon makes everything take longer to build and research, and adds turns up to like 1200 or so, so more actual development can occur (more moving units, as unit speed is not slowed down)).

I believe there is still a demo version of Civ (and possibly of BtS?) available that lets you play the first 100 turns or so - look on firaxis.com for that

[snoopy369]

Link to demo:

http://apolyton.net/dir/action.php?sid=990095830&url=http://boa.apolyton.net/civ4/files/official/civ4_demo.zip&action=go&id=4979

[joncnunn]

Re: Game question

Actually in terms of # of allowed turns before manadory retirement, SMAC was much shorter than any in the Civ series. (Scenerios not included)

SMAC may have felt like it was longer because of the time you spent in the design workshop or deciding what to research.

In the full mode of Civ IV, the speeds are normal, quick (2/3rds normal # of turns), Epic (1.5X # of turns), and Marathon (let's just say that the average era lasts almost as long as an entire game on normal)

As to where to get Civ IV, if you want a new copy try amazon.com or any other major online site; they'll keep older games in stock longer than the stores do.

Originally posted by d=me
1st, how long do games tend to last? Is this a "streamlined" kind of game where it's over in a few turns, or is it like Alpha Centauri where games can stretch out for a very long time?

Secondly, is there anywhere to get civ 4 today? All I see are the gold edition, I don't need warlords, just Civ4 and Beyond the swords.

[joncnunn]

Depends upon your level of micromanagement. And war mongling will generally result in longer games. (And many war monglers prefer marathon)

Originally posted by Supr49er
On marathon speed (slowest) the five ages last quite a while. Depending on the map size and number of opponents, a game could well take 40+ hours.