How did your first game go?

[RGBVideo]

Mine ended about an hour or two ago. Took me sixteen hours. I barely won, getting space race victory in 1998 AD. I was aiming at military victory which I'd base on superior technology, but got bored to the micromanagering of units after capturing few cities at 1870s (and I never really got a decisive advantage before tanks in 1939, and then I didn't bother anymore, since I knew there'd be no way I could finish my opponents off before game would end). Apollo program at 1969, finished spaceship parts the same turn I was made UN secretary general (I didn't remember you could try winning by UN before I built it in late 90s)

I was Napoleon of the French. Mansa Musa of the Mali was my ally most of the game since I got his cities converted to confuciasm early in the game and we shared the same religion ever after. Other AIs were Hatsepsut (didn't see her until very late in the game, she was in a different continent), the little Jap guy (whom I never had conflicts with, tried to culture flip one city of his at ~800BC by building two cities around it and filled them with cultural buildings... I had just got the squares in it's immediate vicinity when I finished the spaceship ), Peter the Great (who sneak attacked me with mounted units -- I pwned him in a large desert battle with musketeers and grenadiers in 1815), and Isabella of Spain (my greatest enemy, I was constantly scared of getting another war with her because of her huge army).

Notes:
-Social engineering ain't nearly as good as it was in SMAC -- I didn't really never need to change upwards anymore once I beelined to the lowest modes on a tech tree, there were no true strategical decisions to be made there.
-The gameplay still slows too much in the late-industrial and you still don't get enough time to actually use your 15th century-tech navy.
-I don't like the rock/paper/scissors combat system. And attacking two knights on an open with a veteran tank (+20% str.) apparently is a suicide.
-AI doesn't cheat the way it did in Civ3, ie. it doesn't know where all your units and cities are from the start. I left several of my coastal cities unguarded on the rear and Isabella didn't invade them during our longest war with warships. OTOH, after I had traded maps, Peter invaded my coastline in the 1950s with three caravels (or someboats), despite he had to sail around the whole continent -- very impressive, considering he could've just killed himself on my machine-gun stacks slowly approaching his capital, blocking the main front. Too bad for him that saw his caravels and rushed some submarines in time.

[alva]

-Social engineering ain't nearly as good as it was in SMAC -- I didn't really never need to change upwards anymore once I beelined to the lowest modes on a tech tree, there were no true strategical decisions to be made there.

Cmon man, you can't tell me, you can make a statement like that after just the one game.

Seems like you had fun though.

Map settings, level etc.. btw?

[snoopy369]

Civics honestly have some great points to them IMO. I disagree strongly that you only have one set, if that's what you're saying; I regularly change between 'wartime' civics and 'peacetime' civics, and I'm sure i'd have a different set in a military game vs a cultural game vs a diplomatic game.

[Tventano]

I am now in my second game. Just got sneak attacked (1600 AD) by Mao, who pretended to be my closest friend. Think I have to switch my civics again. It takes some time to understand the pros anc cons of all the opitions.

[RGBVideo]

Originally posted by Tventano
I am now in my second game. Just got sneak attacked (1600 AD) by Mao, who pretended to be my closest friend. Think I have to switch my civics again. It takes some time to understand the pros anc cons of all the opitions.

How did your first one go?

I regularly change between 'wartime' civics and 'peacetime' civics, and I'm sure i'd have a different set in a military game vs a cultural game vs a diplomatic game.

When you're in a long war, change to fascism and nationalism. When war ends, change back. Ohh, the grand strategical decisions! Come on...

Map settings, level etc.. btw?

Based on Kassiopeia's recommendations, I took the map with most players on a large continent and one on a small one. Medium (or regular, or whatever it's called) size. I took noble since I remember reading that it didn't gave AI any advantage. Here's a screenshot, you can see map at lower corner (I noticed that cIV default infantry has MauserK98s ).

[RGBVideo]

Screenshot:

Forgot to attach

[Solver]

Civics are deeper than SMAC SE. In SMAC, the choices were "plus X to that, minus Y to that". Some of the civics have more interesting effects - Caste System, State Property, Organized Religion, Emancipation... Next, there IS quite a good bit of strategy involved. Yes, changing to Police State for a long war is obvious. But when you play more you'll see the strategy.

For example, you have a medieval war but you really don't want to slow down your Great Person rates. Do you risk a disadvantage at the war and fight it while running Pacifism (I've done that)? Do you emphasize specialists more (Mercantilism) or make the most out of your trade routes (Free Market). Do you perhaps beeline for Democracy to switch to Emancipation and give all the other civs a penalty?

[RGBVideo]

Civics are deeper than SMAC SE. In SMAC, the choices were "plus X to that, minus Y to that".

Yes -- and these pluses and minuses affected the whole gaming world, every single aspect of it.

Some of the civics have more interesting effects - Caste System, State Property, Organized Religion, Emancipation... Next, there IS quite a good bit of strategy involved.

General BS marketing chatter

Do you risk a disadvantage at the war and fight it while running Pacifism (I've done that)?

Keep pacifism if war is short, switch if the war is long. Real "depth" indeed.

Do you emphasize specialists more (Mercantilism) or make the most out of your trade routes (Free Market).

I guess I could try out specialists a bit more during my next game, I didn't bother with such micromanagement apart from my sort of-SSC in the first one.

Do you perhaps beeline for Democracy to switch to Emancipation and give all the other civs a penalty?

My point was that there's no reason whatsoever to switch back once you've got democracy. In SMAC, you have to actually ponder what SE choice to select, even if you've invented them all.

Good feature? Yeah. As good as in SMAC? No way.

[Solver]

BS marketing chatter ? The civics I listed there indeed do have effects that are more elaborate than a bonus to this or penalty to that.

In SMAC, well, how is it much superior? Want to kill your research and rely on Probes? Run Fundamentalism. Want to have economy? Run Democracy/Free Market. Want a powerful industrial machine? Police State/Planned (IIRC)/Power. You always had some SE table elements high, always some low.

I'm a huge SMAC fan and a fan of the SE system, but I don't really see how the SMAC system would be far superior to Civ4. Maybe you should play 5-6 more games before saying there's no depth to the civics? There's plenty of reason to switch civics in Civ4, including going back to older civics.

[Googlie]

Played my first game to completion (gave up on about 4 earlier ones)

Americans, Emperor level, inland sea map, where I started on the southeast corner (it's a flat map, so that was an advantage in that I had no-one coming at me from below or to the right

From about the BC-AD split, I was consistently last (among 8) with a running points total about half the second last's, and about 1/3rd of the leader.

Maxxxed out at ten cities, never got to found a religion, and got in 3 wars (the 3rd of which killed me)

Egyptians got the Apollo Program in 1690!!, before I even had gunpowder

I found that the loose civ alliances seemed to be based on religious affiliation (I converted to Islam 'cos my two biggest neighbours were Islamic - and that caused 2 of my later wars.

(At least I survived longer than Elizabeth who got taken out by Catherine - and what a coquettish slut she is. I had my face slapped a few times in negotiations with her)

Ended up fighting tanks and arty with grenadiers (quite effective, really, with their lobbed bombs)

Neatest thing, though, was when Alexander declared war, and snuck along the southern edge of the map and attacked a city that I'd left pretty poorly defended - something like one rifleman, one grenadier, and a not-upgraded couple of spearmen and a warrior. Alex had the Mech Infantry units, and as his sam gunners were pounding my base my warrior took off down the hill to attack the mech infantry - they (3 units in the simulation) pounded it with their clubs, then with some grunting put their shoulders to the unit and overturned it!!

Of course Alex had stacked it, so the next one killed my warrior, but it was a decent representation of how poor units (or even civilians) could win a skirmish against a higher-level unit

The end came when Cyrus and Catherine also attacked me, and at the end my last surviving city was surrounded by about 60 units from the 3 civs.

I lasted until 1904, by which time the Russians were some - maybe - three turns from launching their spacecraft

Game lasted about 8 hours (thank goodness for that extra hour daylight savings cessation gave me!!)

I let it play thru to the end, but I'll see if there's a decent autosave that I can use for a screenie or two

Great game (and my next one will be dumbed down to Monarch, to give me a better chance)

[Solver]

Googlie, maybe try Prince first ? Monarch still is quite a challenge.

[Googlie]

Good suggestion Solver.

I'm doing just that in a current game - now AD150 and I'm second of five civs so far met

I'm playing on a large archipelago map, and I must say it's nice to have been left alone to expand my way to a dozen bases that secure my whole continent to myself (now go, navies, and get those settlers out and about)

[Solver]

Archipelago is interesting, it has this drawback that if you don't meet the other civs soon enough, you may fall behind simply because you're not getting the advantages of trade.

[Googlie]

Yeah - I'm on a large map, it's AD 1300, and I've just met 4 other civs-but the good news is that they all are trading with me. Had a skirmish with one (France) who took a city but after I regained it and suggested peace, he agreed and started trading luxury items

[Stormhound]

Well, I just finished my first game (aside from the tutorial).

Mind you, it was on Settler, but I figure while I'm still adjusting to the new system I want a little room to play around (and I've never pretended to be a great strategic mind anyhow). Standard map, panagea, lots of land.

First item of note: 8+ hours of playtime to completion. No way I could ever do that with Civ3, so right there is a big plus for the game.

I made it through the game without ever once getting into a war (heck, I didn't even get into any battles, except when my Scouts got killed off by barbs). I was able to use religion and trades to keep the other civs happy (or at least barely placated enough that they didn't actually attack, though the Greeks certainly had it on their minds for a while, from the troops they massed on the border). I kept trade going full bore, and built a healthy enough tech lead by 1000 AD that I knew I'd win; it was just a matter of how and when I'd choose to. I got a little practice dropping Culture Bombs in well-chosen spots, and by game's end had flipped five cities and had one more on the ropes.

I let it ride as long as I could, finishing the last piece of the spaceship in 2049. All told, I had a lot of fun (and am looking forward to committing a little warfare the next time around, to rid the world of some obnoxious leaders).

It was great fun, and I commend Firaxis on its hard work. I'm sure we'll see some patches, but unlike some games I'm not immediately demanding one.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have an addiction to feed...