for Civ4

[annoyed]

Two things. One, to much early exploring. By the time the explorer unit can be acquired all available land is filled up. For Civ4, my suggestion is EU still attrition. Should be easily applied to a turn-based game.

Second, to much early city building. Not sure of best fix right now, but I know at the beginning of civilization, man had many obstacles to over come besides other men. I wish more randomn events besides disease in flood plain was insituted, and that these events would apply to AI also. Early games now are a big city-building race, or warfare on a massive scale. Have not come up with cogent fix yet, still cogitating. Not even sure if I am the only one who thinks a fix is desirable.

[Coracle]

Originally posted by annoyed
Two things. One, to much early exploring. By the time the explorer unit can be acquired all available land is filled up. For Civ4, my suggestion is EU still attrition. Should be easily applied to a turn-based game.

Second, to much early city building. Not sure of best fix right now, but I know at the beginning of civilization, man had many obstacles to over come besides other men. I wish more randomn events besides disease in flood plain was insituted, and that these events would apply to AI also. Early games now are a big city-building race, or warfare on a massive scale. Have not come up with cogent fix yet, still cogitating. Not even sure if I am the only one who thinks a fix is desirable.

Your points are 100% valid. Yes, a fix is desirable, and needed.

We have complained about these problems for months; they even have a name - Settler Diarrhea.

There is nothing left to explore by the time we get to caravels!! So of course the Explorer unit is useless for exploring. And Settlers flooding your territory is another pain in the neck violating your borders.

It was a lot more fun to have something left to explore, settle, and colonize even later in the game as in Civ 2.

I think the two reasons Firaxis did this stuff is the out of control corruption rates in the initial game that make overseas cities useless for production, and the mad nutty rush for the all too scarce strategic resources in the unmodded game.

We all await Civ 4. So long as no one at Firaxis does it.

[Tuberski]

Originally posted by Coracle


Your points are 100% valid. Yes, a fix is desirable, and needed.

We have complained about these problems for months; they even have a name - Settler Diarrhea.

Are you using the royal "We"?

[N. Machiavelli]

We are not amused.

[Edrix]

Keep in mind, though, that the rapid expansion at the beginning of the game isn't exactly that fast when compared with the timescale. The early turns are anywhere between 50-20 years at a pop; plenty of time to send settlers out, overcome obstacles and disease, and found a new city (to get a settler from one city to a city site about 6 tiles away takes over 200 game years on average).

[Jon Shafer]

Yes it may be long 'time-wise', but most people care more about gameplay value. And he's right... the world gets revealed far too quickly. How could they fix this? Well, aside from a larger map, I'm not really sure.

[Coracle]

Originally posted by N. Machiavelli
We are not amused.

And you are not amusing, wise-guy.

Now answer "annoyed's" points with something sensible for a change.

[Coracle]

Originally posted by Trip
Yes it may be long 'time-wise', but most people care more about gameplay value. And he's right... the world gets revealed far too quickly. How could they fix this? Well, aside from a larger map, I'm not really sure.

So how did they do it in Civ 1 and Civ 2?? It did not happen there.

Make settlers more expensive. Limit the number that can be built at any one time. Prevent any rushing of settlers. Give explorers zones of control that settlers cannot pass through. Prevent settlers from building towns on tundra, desert, or jungle. I already modded settlers to be wheeled so they get stopped by mountains and jungles without a road.

There are many options and those are just a few Firaxis can try. Also, stop the AI from seeing the entire map and heading for open tiles they should not even be aware of.

[Jon Shafer]

Originally posted by Coracle
So how did they do it in Civ 1 and Civ 2?? It did not happen there.

Because in 1 and 2 you could beat the pants off of the AI using a few simple strategies. In Civ 3, the human can either rush to fill in every spot (REX), or focus on a core empire. In the long run, most people will agree that a larger empire is better, and therefore the AI aims to achieve that through what you call 'settler diarrhea'. Do I like it? No. I don't want either the AI or the human to be able to do it, but the AI will do it no matter how you mod values because it's designed to do it to prevent the human from getting an advantage. That means the human has to do it also to keep par with the AI.

[Robert]

We have complained about these problems for monthsj

We have not.

Of course the early game consists mostly of expanding your empire. We like that part of the game. You need inteligence to spread, and meanwhile keep your people happy, and keep good relations with your neighbours.

We love that part of the game pherhaps most of all!

don't change it, we love it

And about the random events, no thanks. We don't like that. That's most because we are not in control of it. Pherhaps it's very realistic, but we think it's less fun. We never liked it in civ1 anyway.

thanks for listening to our opinion

[Lord Merciless]

Civ2 AI is puny. It didn't know how to expand, it didn't know what city improvements to build, it didn't know what terrain improvements to make, it didn't know how to get from point A to point B, and it didn't how to carry out offensive military operations.

Settler Diarrhea is nothing else but ICS, only this time it's carried out by the AI rather than by the human player. There is only one counter to it, as in Civ2 MP: beat the crap of anyone who does that.

[fittstim]

Originally posted by Coracle
There is nothing left to explore by the time we get to caravels!! So of course the Explorer unit is useless for exploring. And Settlers flooding your territory is another pain in the neck violating your borders.

Very true. That's why I think giving certain civs the scout from the begining is unfair. They are cheaply built. They have a 2 movement and can explore huge areas of land gobbling up all goody huts.

Other civs have to wait to discover Horseback Riding and then get a certain strategic resource (horse) in order to be able to build a more expensice horseman in order to have a unit capable of exploring with a movement of 2.

My solutiuon is to change the movement of a scout from 2 to 1 and give it an attack/defense of 1. Thus it is put on par with a warrior and balances things out nicely.

[lockstep]

IMO, a good solution to slow the land grab of both human players and AI's - although not yet possible with the editor - would be to increase the food box size for level 1 cities (i.e. the number of food bushels needed for city growth). Currently, the food box sizes for the different city levels are 20/40/60, I'd try 30/40/50 or even 40/40/40.

BTW, this editor tweak shouldn't be too hard to do for PtW. Mike B, are you listening?

[Stuie]

Originally posted by fittstim
That's why I think giving certain civs the scout from the begining is unfair. They are cheaply built. They have a 2 movement and can explore huge areas of land gobbling up all goody huts.

It's also the ONLY thing that the Expansionist trait has going for it. Most people complain that the trait is too weak; nice to see a different opinion for once.

[Edrix]

Originally posted by fittstim
My solutiuon is to change the movement of a scout from 2 to 1 and give it an attack/defense of 1.

Wouldn't that make it exactly the same as the warrior?