Article: Civilization 4 Multiplayer: The World As You Know It Is Changed

[MarkG]

Civilization 4 Multiplayer: The World As You Know It Is Changed
by Friedrich Psitalon

[MortVader]

Good information. Thanks.

[The_Aussie_Lurker]

- Improvements give you money when you rip them up now. That means a Choker is breaking even on his troops abroad while he's ruining your land. Advantage: Attacker

- Cities are much harder targets, especially after they generate culture or build walls. It takes a serious siege to take a prepared city now - "sudden kills" are going to be rarer. Advantage: Defender

The combination of these two factors suggests a VERY good strategy. If the attacker sees that a defender has a very strong defensive position, then the best bet for said attacker is to pillage the land-willy nilly-in hopes of luring the defender out into the open for combat in the open field. Historically, this makes sense, as few battles prior to the industrial age were fought in cities-except out of necessity.
I am soooo loving the sound of this game !

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

[knighterrant]

I have found combat as a whole is changed so much that it takes some time to get used to.

Its changed in a good way, mind you. You have to think more about what you are doing and why. Very rarely do I even see a computer opponent taking out a city from other computers or otherwise.

[RobC]

Re: Civilization 4: The World As You Know It Is Changed

Originally posted by Friedrich Psitalon
One large stack can really tear up the enemy land, but if they're repairing the land 4 turns after you pass, it doesn't do as much good when it costs you 10 gold a turn...

Plus, large stacks are more susceptible to collateral damage from defensive catapults -- no more One-Big-SoD "strategies"

[Lord Byte]

Plus, large stacks are more susceptible to collateral damage from defensive catapults -- no more One-Big-SoD "strategies"

Do take note that you can't use catapults as in CIV3... You will need to attack with the catapult and hope he kills the unit chosen as defender, retreats or you will have sacrificed your catapult!

The only thing you can do with Siege, without attacking is bombard which ONLY lowers defense... It doesn't damage anything else!

[Deathmerchant]

Well, yes, but you can sacrifice your catapult to attack a stack, and it will deal collateral damage to the stack regardless if it actually wins the battle. It's very effective to attack a stack of say, 5 or more units, dealing 2 or 3 damage to each of them, while only sacrificing one catapult. Attack with 2 or 3 catapults, and you reduce nearly every unit in the stack to low health, clearing the way for a quick clean up of anywhere from 5-10 or more enemy units with a mere couple of your units nearby. In this fashion you can clean up enemy stacks of even 10 or more units with a few catapults and a couple of other normal units.

[Rubychaser]

Life, growth and mods, who can ever be sure what they will bring next.

[blackplastick]

You forgot to mention that it is almost impossible to get in a multiplayer game due to "bad peers".

[LzPrst]

You forgot to mention that it is almost impossible to get in a multiplayer game due to "bad peers"

nonsense. I hosted and enjoyed a MP game yesterday with 8 players. people came and left a lot though, but that only shows that the system is pretty decent. it can handle people leaving (AI takes over but still, better than civ3) and returning, and even other people taking over abandoned civs. I havent suffered that myself yet, but no way the AI can mess up completely if you relog quickly.

all you have to make sure is that the correct ports on your firewall are open, easily fixed in windows. according to Soren select the exceptions tab in the firewall window, and add port 2056 for UDP traffic on the SidMeiersCivilization4.exe spot. I did this myself and it helped. couldnt connect to nearly any games or host. after, it worked like a charm.

note. I also opened some ports on my router. ask your ISP for how to do that if you find it necessary.

[Deity Dude]

I don't have a firewall set up. I am almost always unable to connect in Gamespy. On the other hand, if I host in Gamespy or IP there is almost always no problems.

[MasterDave]

Painting such a rosy picture of multiplayer connectivity is not helpful

I have played a lot of multiplayer civ4 , almost since the game released. However, the connecting to peer problem has always been a serious one, and seems to get worse with every patch. Both of the last two weekends I have simply been unable to play at all due to this problem.

Fred completely glosses over this in his review, making Civ4 Multiplayer sound like the easiest game ever to play over the net. Of course, as the main admin for the Civ4players ladder, it is not in his interest to say anything that would discourage new players from trying the game. However, to gloss over this issue sends a message to the devs and gamespy that finding a solution to the peer problem is not important.

I think that this problem is very serious, and will hurt the long-term health of the multiplayer community. And yes, I have port 2056 open. I was gratified to see Soren address this issue the other day, but simply blaming the users for the problem is not the answer. These same users who are supposedly not manageing their firewalls correctly can play lots of other games over the net, so obviously there is something more to this issue than simple user error.

[Fried-Psitalon]

It's exactly this sort of confusion that is the problem. It's not if YOU have 2056 open that decides if you get in- it's the other fellow. Your open 2056 allows the fellow AFTER you to get in.

The problem was at its worst around Christmas time, and has been getting better since then. It has to do with server load; the less load on the servers, the better Gamespy's NAT servers do.. and the less the other guys who don't have 2056 open affects those of us who DO.

As for my "completely glossing over the issue".... give me a break.

Look at the date the article was written?

Back then, there was no problem.

[MasterDave]

Oh, sorry about that. I thought your review was recent, and did not look at the date of the original thread before posting. I definitely agree that the peer thing was not as bad early on in the game's life, but it recently has become untenable.

I do maintain that frustration over the connecting to peer issue will hurt the Civ4 multiplayer community over the long run. I am approaching the point of just sticking with single player civ4, and just giving up on fighting to get into a game for hours at a time. Gamespy and/or Civ4 developers should at least try to improve the NAT detection they are using now if they are serious about Civ4 being a multiplayer game.

[The_Aussie_Lurker]

Dare I say it, but perhaps the Peer connectivity issues are in fact the result of how GOOD MP is this time around? I know this is strange, but consider what Fried-Psitalon said about what the major cause of the problem is-server load. Truth is that I reckon we have ten times more people trying to play Civ as an MP game as opposed to Civ3 (heck, there wasn't even MP in vanilla civ!) and I don't think Gamespy was quite prepared for this level of demand. Once PitBoss is well and truly out, and once gamespy get their heads around the level of demand for online Civ4 games, then I think the problems will be solved! What I can say though is that Direct IP games work like an absolute DREAM !

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.