after a long time, I'm back

[Father Beast]

OK, bit of history: I played Civ1 back a long time ago, and got heavily into Civ2, and found this place and was active in the days before the coming of Civ3.

Then I lost my job, and had to cancel my preorder of Civ3. Another forum member bought it for me, letting me pay him back later, which is one of the nicest things another person has ever done for me.

Somehow, I just never really got into Civ3, though, and I wandered away from Civ and also Apolyton. I guess I still had moments when I would get into a Fantastic Worlds scenario for a while, but it wasn't like it used to be.

So, this year, my Wife bought me Civ4 complete for my birthday, and I installed it. I had some interest after seeing the video of Yin eating the box, but didn't ever rouse myself before.

So I plopped into a basic game at the easiest difficulty, and hoped for something like my old first game of Civ1, where I was on a continent by myself and won the space race. It got me familiar with the game and had me coming back for more.

OK, so I wasn't by myself, but my neighbors didn't seem too crabby, and I set about building up. I found myself fighting the interface a few times, trying to figure out how to do stuff I did all the time in Civ2, but it wasn't too bad.

Until the 1800's, when Napoleon demanded I pay him tribute, and I refused, because I was technologically superior, and he was on the other side of the greek empire. Imagine my astonishment when he arrived with about 16 elephants and some other assorted units and started whomping on me, Big Time!!

and after about 20 years of trying to deal with him, the Romans on the other side decide it's a good time to invade me too, and I went down in flames.

I sat there, Flabbergasted. I had LOST a game of Civ on the difficulty easier than settler!!!

Dang! I had to play again. Immediately.

Now I've got the old feeling again. the culture wars along the borders are fascinating. I'm having dreams about what to do with my cities. I wake up in the night wondering how I'm going to deal with something or other.

I have wandered for many years, but now, I have come home!

[Theben]

Who are you?

[Father Beast]

couple of quick questions as I get going.

1. are deserts really useless? I noticed global warming causes deserts. can't I irrigate or mine them or something?

2. how do I check what resources I have and how many are out in trade? I thought I saw a screen which showed my resources, but I can't find it now.

[rah]

To see what you've connected, check any city and it lists resources and how many in the upper right hand corner. For knowing what trades the diplo screen will show you.

Welcome home. I too hated civ 3 but civ 4 regenerated my thrill for the game.

[Felch]

Unless you've got a terrain feature there (resource, oasis, flood plain), deserts are worthless. So are mountains, which are now more important for bottle necking.

It's a completely different game from II, especially the AI. ICS will not save you - you actually have to know how to play. It's a ton of fun though.

Welcome back. I'm sure you'll find the people here are gonna help you out a lot.

[Ming]

Welcome back FB

[Theben]

couple of quick questions as I get going.
2. how do I check what resources I have and how many are out in trade? I thought I saw a screen which showed my resources, but I can't find it now.

1 way is to look at any city screen... in the upper right it will show tiny representations of what you have and how many resources reach that city.

Or you can hit f4 and pick the 3 bottom button from the left. It shows your empire trade.

[Father Beast]

Ok, after my first 3 games - Same settings, BTW: Small, epic, settler, american roosevelt - in which I lost 1 and won 2, I decided to print out and read the manual (Dang PDF's. I can't read them at the computer, that's for playing Civ).

Wow. Now I know why a bunch of things were happening, like why I ended up making so much money through trade late in the game. Used to have to build caravans, now it's automatic.

I can see that with a lot of techs and resources, it's possible to have some truly obscene bonuses to health and happiness late in the game, even making it possible to play on higher difficulties.

it is such an improvement over civ2 in so many ways. Like how stacked combat actually works, instead of the ridiculous "kill one, kill 'em all" we had previously. I once killed 184 units at once because a battleship was able to hit a barb spawn point. (1 level higher than raging hordes) And the Civics resembles AC's social engineering at first, but provides all sorts of unique bonuses instead of just sliders. Despotism isn't something I just have to get the heck out of as soon as possible anymore.

I guess I take a score hit for playing on settler. I got 2 Dan Quayle's (including the one where I was conquered), and one Ethelred the Unready (whoever that was...)

I'm not a big one for graphics, but the first time I zoomed out to global view, I almost caused a short by drooling on the keyboard.

But the biggest thing is the feeling. The sense that I can do anything. Maybe the problem with Civ3 was the feeling that I was fighting the game, rather than the other Civs. Now I wake up in the night wanting to try something new. I had a long extended dream the other night about spreading my religion and watching it creep like culture.

Yeah, Culture! I have played well past the time limit on one game, seeing how much I can conquer with just cultural flipping. it's a game unto itself.

And Religion is in without ruining things. I find myself planning how to host all the world religions and build their holy buildings and have missionaries and... you get the picture. I'm just trying to figure out why I can't build Monasteries after a certain tech or something. didn't see That in the manual.

And the biggest thing? I have only played Vanilla Civ4 so far. Haven't even cracked the Warlords or BTS versions which were also installed. I have got to try playing under their rulesets, too.


Thanks to Rah and Ming for welcoming me back. Thanks also to Felch, though I don't remember you.

The future awaits

[DaveV]

Welcome back, Father Beast. I'm another person who loved Civ 2, found Civ 3 unsatisfying, but still plays Civ 4 after having it for almost 4 years. If you ever get bored with the base game, there are some really great mods out there.

[Blaupanzer]

Father Beast, been a long time. I'm happy to see you and DaveV and some of the really enthusiastic players back on Apolyton.

Get to playing BTS. It is a Civ II fan's wet dream finally embodied. Also not a big Civ III fan because the choices mostly didn't seem to be mine, but were somehow forced on me. In that game we were asked to find the perfect path through what was offered; wasn't wide open like Civ II. Now, in BTS, we are back to Civ II's openness with multiple orders of magnitude in improved elements.

[Ming]

Go straight to BTS. Warlords was a big step up from Vanilla (and might be worth checking ouf for some of the senarios) and BTS is light years beyond Warlords. It fixed a lot of the problems and brings many new things to the table. BTS is really Civ Heaven

[Theben]

Yep, go straight to BtS 3.19. Otherwise you'll have to unlearn some stuff even switching from Vanilla to BtS.

[Father Beast]

Thanks to DaveV, author of the definitive ICS guide.

Thanks also to Blaupanzer, though I don't remember you. Did you go by another name?

I started a BtS game, but am still in the BC years. My mouth dropped open when I built the Great Wall. the Dang thing went all the way around my Civilization!!!!

I missed the city view at first, until I realized I could zoom waaayyy in and look at it. I hope the spaceship screen is a little better, like the manual promises, as the screen in Vanilla Civ4 was a disappointment.

I know I'm playing at a low difficulty, but I just had someone offer to be my Vassal. I had to look up what that meant, even though I had just read the manual.

I'm going to have to go back and be a tyrant sometime, and see what it's like to go a conquering.

I'm now downloading the 3.19 patch. 175 megabytes?!?!?

[Blaupanzer]

When conquering, watch your expenses. Sometimes better to burn a city, than take on the costs for a marginal location. Not really in the spirit of Civ II, but we're not ICSing anymore. Once again, good to see you.

[Father Beast]

My favorite change in Bts 3.19? having each unit represented by a single figure.

I'm trying to figure out the ideal expansion rate. should I try to break even with 100% research, or expand enough so I am even at 50% research. I've been hovering at around 80 or 90 lately myself.