Civ 4 Strategy

[Cort Haus]

Now we've had a tantalising glimpse into What Might Really Be In Civ 4, what are our initial macro thoughts on how it might play? The programmable AI is the most exciting thing since Electricity, but even those of us who'd love to program an AI might not want to demystify the game before learning about the AI through gameplay. That said, what we know about the game changes should get us musing already about how the game might 'feel'.

Here's 2GP worth to start with.

1. Corruption and Flipping

With no corruption, and no culture flipping, the business of building a huge army to go bonking heads changes. Corruption is a balancer in Civ 3 which gives a diminishing return on empire growth, and culture-flipping also slows down the rate at which enemies can be consumed. Removing both of these would presumably need some other balancer to keep smaller Civs in the game, as Civ 3 does well compared to Civ 1 and 2.

2. Specialist Cities

These look interesting. CTP went in for city specialisation, but the proposals for Civ 4 to spawn 'Great Persons' from Specialst Cities are something else. It'll make a diffrence whether these people are randomly emerging or 'buildable'. The former being more lotto than strategy.

3. Unit promotions

This looks fun, HOMM-style, but will it not penalise the builder or will the 'Great Persons' balance this? HOMM is a wargame that uses buildings, but Civ is different, with peaceful victory conditions available. It seems that if you're not fighting you will not develop the special abilities to defend against the big guy with all the promos when he comes knocking. In Civ 3 a strong economy and adequate military is enough, but in Civ 4 will the builder be able to defend or must he constantly fight to maintain parity of unit quality?

[Drakan]

Re: Civ 4 Strategy

Originally posted by Cort Haus

In Civ 3 a strong economy and adequate military is enough, but in Civ 4 will the builder be able to defend or must he constantly fight to maintain parity of unit quality?

In Civ4 a Builder has it even easier now. Now in Civ4 culture can act as a defense bonus, perfect for a builder. Also it is much harder to conquer -and keep- cities because of their strong culture value.

[joncnunn]

I think this thread belongs in the Civ IV forum.

[Cort Haus]

Re: Re: Civ 4 Strategy

Originally posted by Drakan
Also it is much harder to conquer -and keep- cities because of their strong culture value.

Harder-to-conquer because of cultural defence bonuses, yes, but how much harder-to-keep? Without the risk of flipping, abundant cash won't be needed to rush temples & libs, and units won't be tied up either. Without corruption the conquered cities can start producing quickly, though at first they'll be engulfed by culture with few workable tiles.

Seeing as people tend to go for 'rolling' invasions, defending newly captured cities tends to be less of an issue than capturing new ones, so that most of the captured cities are soon safely behind the front, where they should be unmolested by enemy culture.

[Cort Haus]

Originally posted by joncnunn
I think this thread belongs in the Civ IV forum.

You might be right, Jon, but I posted it in the Civ 3 strat forum for two reasons.

1. Comparing specifically with Civ 3 strategy, rather than with civ type games generally.

2. To address the 'poly strat community amongst whom the highest quality of dicussion can usually be found. Historically, this forum has a very high ratio of reasoned, analytical and civilised posts to flamey and egotistical type posts.

[Modo44]

Re: Civ 4 Strategy

Those are all just guesses (you can worship me if I am right ). Even if I am not correct, I think Firaxis can find ways to make the game balanced.

Originally posted by Cort Haus
1. Corruption and Flipping

With no corruption, and no culture flipping, the business of building a huge army to go bonking heads changes. Corruption is a balancer in Civ 3 which gives a diminishing return on empire growth, and culture-flipping also slows down the rate at which enemies can be consumed. Removing both of these would presumably need some other balancer to keep smaller Civs in the game, as Civ 3 does well compared to Civ 1 and 2.

I trust there will be new and/or improved ways to limit the rolling invasion. For example, cities could be hard to "convert" to actually do some useful job. I mean some sort of resistance, but probably stronger and longer than in Civ3. Also, I would think of ways to simulate the problems of connecting the new infrastructure to your own (transportation trouble?). The second thing would probably become more visible closer to modern times. Example: When invading the USSR, the Germans had to convert the rails due to the different standard the Russians used, which caused logistic problems. The simplest way to simulate this is slowing down movement over enemy Roads, Rails, or whatever for a number of turns after the territory is conquered, even inside the new owner's borders.

Originally posted by Cort Haus
2. Specialist Cities

These look interesting. CTP went in for city specialisation, but the proposals for Civ 4 to spawn 'Great Persons' from Specialst Cities are something else. It'll make a diffrence whether these people are randomly emerging or 'buildable'. The former being more lotto than strategy.

We have little knowledge of the leader's capabilities yet. If (for example) the scientific ones are all the same except for the names, I guess a science city will simply provide one. In this case you can pretty much predict the outcome (I bet someone will figure out the math pretty quickly after the game is released.) But if the leaders have different abilities, you get the benefit of not being sure what will happen exactly, while having the ability to predict the general direction of the bonus. That would be more interesting, I think.

Originally posted by Cort Haus
3. Unit promotions

This looks fun, HOMM-style, but will it not penalise the builder or will the 'Great Persons' balance this? HOMM is a wargame that uses buildings, but Civ is different, with peaceful victory conditions available. It seems that if you're not fighting you will not develop the special abilities to defend against the big guy with all the promos when he comes knocking. In Civ 3 a strong economy and adequate military is enough, but in Civ 4 will the builder be able to defend or must he constantly fight to maintain parity of unit quality?

I guess you would simply need some sort of building(s) that allow a player to make unit upgrades. SMAC had plenty of those, for different unit types, but only for the morale. I guess you could think of a "Marine Academy" to help you build amphibious units, and other stuff doing similar things with other unit abilities. Of course, those would have to be balanced against the "average" warmonger's ability to get in-field promotions. For example, some upgrades might only be available to units upgraded in the field (you get shot at, you survive and you learn, or you die ), while others would need careful study of strategy (a soldier can hardly learn advanced logistics while shooting people).

[Terra Nullius]

theocratic police state!!!

woohoo!!

Originally posted by Cort Haus
Historically, this forum has a very high ratio of reasoned, analytical and civilised posts to flamey and egotistical type posts.

oops,..

for one thing, invasion may end up being less profitable
you can conquer a city, but, if you can't convert the citizens, your treasury will keep bleeding away to your opponent.

depending on how culture works, we may also find that things like movement bonuses don't apply.
the main reasons i see for rolling invasions in c3 are
- movement bonuses
- inability to heal units in enemy territory
this is what forces me to gradually push the front further into enemy territory. otherwise, i'd simply go straight for the most powerful/strategic cities and leave the rest alone.

given the present corruption model, the main benefit in conquering territory is to get more gold. now that can be achieved by spiritual means. it might turn out there's less need to limit the power of rolling invasions. i mean what's the point of a huge military build-up if your opponent can just send out the dominicans and walk off with your treasury?

dibs on the jesuits for age of discovery
dum dum
dum de dum dum
dum de dum dum
dum de doo dum, ahhhh

look out vmxa, i'm catholic as hell and i'm comin' for you

oh, i almost forgot,..
theocratic police state!!!

tee hee hee hee hee hee

[Modo44]

Originally posted by lebensraum
given the present corruption model, the main benefit in conquering territory is to get more gold. now that can be achieved by spiritual means. it might turn out there's less need to limit the power of rolling invasions. i mean what's the point of a huge military build-up if your opponent can just send out the dominicans and walk off with your treasury?

Perhaps the complete annihilation of said opponent, so that he never ever sends the Dominicans again? Perhaps because the attacker needs only two more cities to win by Domination?

Your point is only valid if there is absolutely no way to easily take over enemy territory, and if there are no victory conditions associated purely with land + population you have. I think with CIV's complexity, the first thing is in question. The second one is already solved against your point—it is called a Domination victory. This means rolling invasions need to be prevented.

[Terra Nullius]

Originally posted by Modo44
Your point is only valid if there is absolutely no way to easily take over enemy territory

well for one thing, you're assuming that you will be able to storm the holy of holies (ok, just because the romans got away with it..) sure, in a face-to-face slugfest, the biggest heathen wins, but..
if my sweet, compassionate nature wins me lots of friends, who also happen to be just as big,..
if you start your godless build-up too early, and end up funding my research efforts,..
if you spend your time conquering one continent while i'm busy baptising on another,..

basically, rolling invasions are pretty much inevitable. corruption was a mechanism for re-balancing gameplay in this respect and i think we've all had corruption right up the who's-eewhat's-it. if other aspects of the game are strong, then invasion becomes just one way to win, and not necessarily the most powerful.

there are many unanswered questions still so we'll just have to wait and see. one point here is, what happens when you take a city. can you send forth the congregation of the faith to forcibly convert those sinners. can you starve off the vampires to feed the werewolves?
previously that was a fairly simple matter, starve their guys, then regrow the city with your own people. now it looks like it won't work that way - just because you capture a city doesn't mean the new citizens will be faithful to you.

then there's the matter of religious capitals. if you capture one, you get to pass around the plate on your own behalf.
however, what if aggression against the holy city causes adherents of that faith to revolt. you might end up with half you're population in revolt just because you attacked a single holy place.

just more conjecture at this point. there are sure to be ways to balance the game against outright military domination. we'll have to see what they come up with in,.. umm november.

can i get an ahhh, men?

oh, i almost forgot,...

theocratic police state!!!

tee hee hee

now how about that prayer-by-email??

[Modo44]

Originally posted by lebensraum
well for one thing, you're assuming that you will be able to storm the holy of holies (ok, just because the romans got away with it..) sure,

So did every major military power throughout history. Some won, some lost. But tell me, how many holy places did America occupy last year only?

There is still one problem with your assumptions. Even if the captured population is rioting, and even if you get some unrest at home, you still have units. As long as they can move, heal, and regroup (and get the new promotions) on recently captured territory, you only need the numbers advantage once, and you are ready to roll. Except if some game mechanics prevent those possibilities, no great culture will prevail against military.

Originally posted by lebensraum
now how about that prayer-by-email??

Any time. Care to ask others to join?

[Jaybe]

Regarding building up of culture and borders in captured cities, the mechanics have undoubtedly changed. Either civ3 xenophobia or having to counteract the culture of the former owners - so you have to dig yourself out of a hole.

[Modo44]

Originally posted by Jaybe
Regarding building up of culture and borders in captured cities, the mechanics have undoubtedly changed. Either civ3 xenophobia or having to counteract the culture of the former owners - so you have to dig yourself out of a hole.

I get that, but it is not a problem for a big-enough stack of offensive units. If movement and healing is possible, you just roll over everything, and deal with problems later.

You must have some representation of logistic problems of a great army on enemy (or newly conquered) territory. Just making units cost loads of upkeep does not do it. Players can prepare for that too easy.

[Terra Nullius]

Originally posted by Modo44
no great culture will prevail against military

yeah, yeah, tell it to wojtyla

You must have some representation of logistic problems of a great army on enemy territory.

i just posted some stuff on this in civ-4 general
simple supply system
the other thing i'd really like to see is more tactical diversity in battle (phalanxes, flanking manoeuvres, etc, etc). but you can only do so much without making the game unplayable.

[Addled Platypus]

Now look at the vastly changed tech tree

Then lets make plans

http://apolyton.net/civ4/3/78/126/

[Vince278]

Originally posted by Cort Haus
2. To address the 'poly strat community amongst whom the highest quality of dicussion can usually be found. Historically, this forum has a very high ratio of reasoned, analytical and civilised posts to flamey and egotistical type posts.

Guess again, OT is still OT. I come here only on the rare occasions that I need to discuss strategy. That being the case, that would mean I would be missing out on all of the good posts that are here instead of where they belong. This point has been brought up a number of times in the past (unsuccessfully).