It's very frustrating to play as a builder

[One_more_turn]

Why? Reasons:

1. Low final score;

2. Always worry some psychos might attack you;

3. Can't control your own destiny.


I'd like to hear your perspectives.

[trev]

1 Satisfaction of winning playing your style should be enough, scoring system rewards early finishes excessively.
2. Part of being a builder is always being prepared to defend your buildings, that is the game.
3. A strong enough defence allows control of own destiny, whether builder or warmonger.

Civ has never been a game where one could only build, or only war, or only something else, it has always been a compromise between style and what works.

[wodan11]

1. Ignore score. The algorithm is obviously and clearly biased and is therefore meaningless. Biased because it encourages some victory types over others. e.g., it rewards early victory and thus Domination / Conquest will give higher scores than Space, Diplomacy, and others. When in fact it may and often does require greater player skill to achieve those victories. So, Score is worthless. The programmers didn't do it right. Ignore it.

2. The interactions with other nations makes CIV interesting and adds an element. You have to make sure your military is up to snuff. But there's a world of difference between a military capable of defending yourself and responding to incursions and one capable of conquering. A builder is free to do the former and doesn't have to exert nearly the effort that a conqueror has to.

3. In what way can't you control your own destiny (other than point #2)? I suppose you might get beat out for Wonders. If you honestly don't want interaction, then play a custom game with just one player (yourself). Nothing wrong with that.

[rah]

It's very frustrating to play as a builder

1. The games go to quick because most of the time you're just hitting the enter key.

2. Games get a little boring, (see #1) or where your biggest excitement is seeing who you can rip off in a trade.

(yes, you can infer my style of play from these)

[Garth Vader]

One of these days I want to take a bunch of the crazy warmonger AI's, put them on a continent together, take a builder civ on my own continent and build to my hearts content!

I like the aspect of finding the right locations for cities, specializing them with wonders/terraforming/buildings for specific GP points, or tech, or production, whatever. Building is fun for trying to get everything as perfect and orderly as you can.

[rah]

The last time I had a situation like that, (i wasn't totally alone but the one other civ was finished off in an early rush so I had the continent all to myself) there was a lot of early wars on the other cont. So much so that most of the civs were eliminated leaving just two butt buddies that had so much land that they were quite the powerhouses when we finally made contact.

[wodan11]

"butt buddies"?! Haven't heard that in a while. Got a out of me, rah.

[rah]

Yeah, I didn't feel like working my way in between them.

[Blaupanzer]

"Always Peace" is actually a custom option. Never used it, but it is there. If one of "their" early cities gets in your way, the next 5000 years could be pretty boring. Nonetheless, you could then build away with either "No Barbarians" (another custom option) or a small force to deal with the barbs. Does that appeal?

[rah]

I'll just shoot myself now. I can't imagine anything more boring than always peace and no barbarians.

[enter] micro manage city [enter] micro manage city [enter] move worker [enter] [repeat]
ARRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG GGGGGGGGGGGG

[wodan11]

To each his or her own. I'm big on experimentation and even if I find I don't appreciate a custom option or strategy of play, there's no reason somebody else might not do so.

[brandonjm8]

if the game goes too quick, play marathon
if having barbarians or constantly having to fight someone, buy battlefield 2 and kill to your hearts content
i myself dont play with barbarians sometimes, not only is it easier for me but for the AI too, like above mentioned theres harder things to do then early conquest, if you want a challenge then try them, if you just want to kill kill kill then you can do that too
i will agree, i would never have "always peace" but i wouldnt have "always war" either, i like it to be realistic as can be and see what they AI can do, cuz i always get big some starts better than others but i always get big and i like the challenge of diplomacy and world manipulation and possibly conquest, try conquering everyone with modern and advanced units, mighty fing hard.

[Ming]

try conquering everyone with modern and advanced units, mighty fing hard.

Not really... the AI is stupid. Whith even armies, I'll take the human over the AI anytime.

[a.kitman]

i recently picked up a copy of civ 4 after about 6 years off any civ game(jeeze time flyes).
i like to play as a builder aswell and what really ircks me is that the civ relations doesnt seem to have any meaning what so ever.
like in my last game on prince, my first prince in civ 4 i might add, where my neighbor gilgamesh attacks me out of nowhere whit tons of pluses and only 1 negative(close boarders). it annoyed me cus i hade done everything he asked and even gave him a free trade resource. i was on a peninsula and he was my only land neighbor. i hade even gone to war whit him when he asked and fougth of some pesky russians.

granted i dont know all the civs that well yet and it makes sense that some are sneaky... but it just pissed me off.

[MikeXemerys]

I'm usually playing on monarch (sumer) and basically I'm a builder. However I've learned that a strong army is always required not only to defend your self but to attach the neighboring cities which threaten your plots

I don't think that a builder must play as a pacifist, a strong army can keep psychos away and it's required to extend your territory when needed. What I find frustrating is when I lose battles with over 90% odds.

I should mention I'm playing the RoM mod, I find vanilla civ lacking in features.