Is cIV too balanced?

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Originally posted by Cort Haus


What a pathetic load of complete cack.

ZOMG teh Civ 2ers r teh 1337!!! LOLZORS!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Thanks! With a response like that, you're making my point for me.

[Japher]

I've liked all Civs and I find each one to have it's own special place in my heart. CIV is different, that is all. I like it, and haven't had problems having run away games. It just takes practice with a specific civ until you figure out how to exploit them.

However, the one thing I don't like about CIV is the loss of the ctrl+shift+Q restart.

[Maquiladora]

There's far more enthusiasm for CIV strategy at CFC than here. It's unfortunate, but that's what happens when you neglect the site for too long. I hope things can be turned around somewhat with the release of the next expansion.

[Japher]

It's unfortunate, but that's what happens when you neglect the site for too long.

It is ashame what has happen at CFC

[Solver]

Civ4 is certainly a far superior game

I can't agree with the assertion that there's anything worse about the current community. In Civ3 days, Apolyton also had some great strategy and game mechanics discussion. The Apolyton University, posts by people such as Aeson, Arrian, alva, alexman (see how many start with 'a'!), nye, Thesesus, sabrewolf - I could name at least a dozen others. Thamis, ixnay, Trip, Gramphos, Shay, player1 - these and others did great work on modding the game.

These days with Civ4, our community here mostly consists of Civ4 players that have been registered since before the game came out. It's just an objective fact that we don't now have as much activity in the Civ4 forums as we did in the Civ3 forums in mid-2003. But clearly, the Civ4 community is extremely strong, even if not here. CFC has a very strong strategy section and a good tradition of challenge games by players such as aelf and sisiutil, and the modding scene over there is pretty awesome.

[Arrian]

However, the one thing I don't like about CIV is the loss of the ctrl+shift+Q restart.

I miss the quickstart option, yeah.

-Arrian

[Japher]

I still press it... the moan, hit esc, thin click exit to main, and then hit enter half a dozen times... not as efficient

[Arrian]

No doubt. I really shoulda whined about that during the beta test, but for some reason it didn't occur to me. Sorry.

-Arrian

[Japher]

I'll forgive you, but for now "Arrian" is my new curse word.

[Seeker]

Well for one thing it is now quite a bit harder to hack off your own modded scenario (i.e. with low res bitmap unit graphics)in an hour like you could in Civ 2....improved graphics.

[PLATO]

Wonder what would happen if they rewrote Civ 2 to just enhance the graphics to today's level and kept everything else the same?

[Kontiki]

I haven't played Civ IV (or III), but if the Indian civ isn't pathetically weak and massively corrupt, then the game is too balanced.

[Elok]

They'd remove the strength Seeker just mentioned, of easy mod-ability, and leave people whining about archaic gameplay.

Never played CIV (saw a roommate play it once); thought CIII sucked. EDIT: Does CIV have that "culture-flop" thing too? You know, where your city gets overwhelmed by a neighboring enemy city's cultural awesomeness and suddenly converts for free, taking all soldiers with it? If they didn't get rid of that, I feel comfortable saying that CIV sucks too, even without having played it. Because that's just terminally lame. It killed CIII for me.

[kittenOFchaos]

Is Civ4 too balanced? No.

If there is a disparity in the ability of players then the difference between tech, population, power, gnp and mfg will be vast, the same as in all previous civ games. The only limitation is you have to pace your expansion to fit your economic resources, but once the game get to first code, then currency, then free speech you'll find your ability to expand successively increase without messing up your economy. Abit of patience is required and it helps pace the game so you aren't in space by 1 AD a la Civ2 (how dumb was that).

Given reasonably similar land, the only critical factor is player ability, I don't get this idea that Civ2/3 could allow incredible leads without it coming down to the differences in the ability of players. Doesn't make sense.


If you're talking about against the AI, then the issue is you're equating spamming cities in previous versions with ability, especially in Civ2 where the AI got bored expanding after a while. Or Civ2 where the human could abuse Caravans like no tomorrow whilst the AI looked on, amused presumably. Civ3 suffered from the fact that after a while the human player stopped taking casualties due to having a vast stack of units capable of bombardment. Whilst bombardment is still strong in Civ4, it costs units, something that didn't happen in Civ3.

Maybe that is what is wrong, it doesn't allow people to play without taking casualties, doesn't allow people to spam cities, doesn't allow people to build caravans for the cheap cash in that the AI won't do. Lets face it, some people find playing WoW fun, that doesn't mean that it is a good game, just that people like simple games that they win all the time, or feel that they're winning.

[Provost Harrison]

Originally posted by Maquiladora
There's far more enthusiasm for CIV strategy at CFC than here. It's unfortunate, but that's what happens when you neglect the site for too long. I hope things can be turned around somewhat with the release of the next expansion.

Hey, we're all CivJunction now