NOT Fair - Enemy pop cap 250

[morandi]

In checking my recorded games to see why I can never win, I notice that when I switch to the enemy viewpoint, he goes through a very very long phase [ late stages , last 2 or 3 ages if I remember rightly ], where his population cap is 250 - whereas mine is stuck at 200.

This is with 3 different enemies [ Inca, Japanese and Korea]. All at easy level - I've played RTS games b4 but never a Civ type game.

I've included 1 of the games as rec. just so you believe me. In only 1 of the 3 games did his pop cap go back down to 200 - in the others I think it stays at 250.

With this game where I've read that the AI is much much better than anything else, why does BHG see the need to cheat on easy levels? It just doesn't seem fair to me.

[Solver]

There is no cheating. Maximal population is 200 for the AI. In your case, they probably build the Colossus wonder. Build it yourself, and you will have population of 250, against 200 of the AI.

[FrustratedPoet]

There is a special resource (peacocks?) that raises the pop cap too I think, maybe that had something to do with it.

[morandi]

I see, thanks - but I think it'd better if we could have this info given with the game rather than making us wade through every scrap of info on various websites.

[Snotty]

Personally I think RoN has a very extensive and well implemented help system. For the vast majority of things you merely have to mouse over them to find out what they do. I greatly enjoyed exploring all the new resources when I got the game, and would have lost a lot of the 'wow' factor had I been merely presented with a chart.

[FrustratedPoet]

Originally posted by morandi
I see, thanks - but I think it'd better if we could have this info given with the game rather than making us wade through every scrap of info on various websites.

I completely agree, I'm mystified as to why there isn't a list of the benefits given by all the Wonders/Resources in the instruction manual.

The only bad thing I can say about this game is the poor documentation. A lot of good keyboard shortcuts aren't listed in the manual either.

[FrustratedPoet]

Originally posted by Snotty
I greatly enjoyed exploring all the new resources when I got the game, and would have lost a lot of the 'wow' factor had I been merely presented with a chart.

Fair enough, mate. However, what you call the "wow factor" I call "having to pause the game for a couple of minutes while I hover my mouse over several icons to work out what the hell they do".

[wilebill]

The only bad thing I can say about this game is the poor documentation. A lot of good keyboard shortcuts aren't listed in the manual either.

Agree. I found a good hot-key chart, four pages worth at some site, but I forget the link. Even it does not cover some of the more common keystroke tricks. So why with this wonderful hotkey interface could not BHG at least include a .pdf to document them?

The manual could be a lot better, to say the least. I get the impression that it once was a lot better but that most of it got edited out in the interest of minimizing the page count, thus saving a couple of cents per box.

Good documentation, specifically a good manual, has always been supplied with Civ games. Either BHG dropped the ball on the documentation (which I doubt) or Microsoft did not wish to include good documentation, which is unfortunately typical of Microsoft.

[Solver]

Yeah, I agree - manual is poor, no real hotkey list, although in-game help is fantastic. Still... I had to compile that RoN interface feautures thread only because there was no such thing... shouldn't be the case.

[albiedamned]

I suspect they deliberately left a lot of details out of the manual because they didn't want to have to keep it up to date with last minute changes, for example to national bonuses or wonder bonuses.

[deadfuse]

http://www.ronoracle.com/ has the stats on all the wonders and resources and units

[Inverse Icarus]

just leave on the ingame help for 2 or 3 games, you'll learn everything.

[Hermann the Lombard]

Speaking of that hot-key list, does someone have a good link offhand?

Specific question: I know K, S, O for military buildings, but I don't know hotkeys for temples and many other non-military buildings. Now, why would I need that when I can just TAB through possible research items? Well, mostly to see which cities have (say) a temple so I know where I can build them to push the borders.

Oh, and especially is there a key for forts?

Thanks! -- HtL

[Solver]

Point the mouse over a button that tells your villager to build something, and you can see the hotkey for that building .

[FNBrown]

The poor documentation is probably designed to compel you to drop $20 on the official strategy guide