Civ IV

[Calax]

yeah but that was one on one. the panzers were 3 in an army against ONE spearman.

[alanschu]

And while the spearman beating tank IS annoying, you can't fault Civ3 for that....it's been a problem in all the Civ games, including Alpha Centauri.

 

 

The worst was the first one though, as there was no concept of unit strength. Just like that, BAM, that militia guy has taken out my Battleship.

 

 

The first thing I usually do is upgrade the attack/defense values of units with the scenario editor in Civ3, to hopefully keep those to a minimum.

[Walsingham]

What might be better is a pitched battle/skirmish value like in Fantasy General. Units attack with thei8r best option, and respond wih their matching stat. Damage is taken by reference to attack strength and armour. Thus a terrorist or longbowman has a great skirmish value, but lousy stand up and fight values. A tank has the exact reverse. You don't use skirmishers to hold ground, but to scout ahead, and to soften up enemy units. I think this would be more realistic and it would also add a whole range of new units to play with, from bushmen to sharpshooters to secret agents.

[EnderAndrew]

I think the game mechanic is fine because of two reasons.

 

I want there to be a random element to an extent. If you don't like the random element, then reload until you get your desired result, but feel like the rat-bastard cheater you are.

 

I think on the battlefield, superior forces and technology can lose to lesser forces and technology. It has happened many times in history, significantly often even.

 

You also have to take Civ's various mechanics into effect. Certain forces have great offensive or defensive numbers, but may be lacking in the other regard. A spearman is high on defense if I recall, and may be able to sit in a fortitied position in a certain terrain and have a great defensive bonus. Add to that a tank may be moving father in a turn than it should be, and may be losing some of it's strength for over-exerting itself. Add to that experience factors, and a veteran unit is more powerful than a brand new one.

 

A good general/leader in Civ has to take all those variables into account when charging into battle. Honestly, I played Civ 2 as a complete pacifist, and occassionally play the complete pacafist in Civ 3. Civ 3 now gives me many more victory conditions. I only go to war if a country refuses to trade a resource I need, and then war is a quick surgical strike to take a certain city to gain a resource.

[Calax]

only problem is to get them to stop being at war with you, ive been at war with sombody since i got writing thus my war weiriness rose and my people started to get angry. They really get angry when you have reached the space age. Reminds me of Rome Total War in that reguard. Especially when your fighting rome, you make a peace treaty with the senate but the other three states arn't cooperative with their bosses and keep right on attacking you so the SPQR get's dragged into it again. wash rinse repeat.

[EnderAndrew]

My tactic was always to rush for the Pyramids and Great Wall. Then focus solely on science, while ignoring my military. Why waste time on weak units early?

 

With the Great Wall, and a huge population, no one will invade you. Just keep one military unit per city.

 

Then I get gunpowder before anyone else. If I make a quick strike for resources, I do it then. With rifleman before anyone else, I completely pwn the landscape. I think it is the one moment in the game where one small military technology trounces the lack of said technology.

 

I have units with a 10 on attack/defense attacking units with 2s and 4s.

 

After I steal a quick city or two, people are quick to negotiate surrender.

[Calax]

me, I just have some really powerful (ie human) allies to work on opponent, but that dont work in rome.

[EnderAndrew]

Against human opponents I don't think I'd fare as well with my minute military for such a large portion of the game.

[Calax]

usually we just form an alliance against the comps and quit when we are done.(we're friends and i wouldn't survive on my own for 1 age.)

[EnderAndrew]

What did you guys think of the Wonders being weakened in Civ 3?

 

I think it was somewhat necessary.

[alanschu]

I liked the change to the Great Wall. You still needed to build the town walls to get the bonus, but you got a good bonus for using it.

 

If I could make contact with 3 civs, I would make a mad dash for the Great Library. Having it meant I got any tech known by those 3 other civs immediately, for free!

 

I make a change to Monarchy as fast as I can too. I don't like Republic, as it doesn't have the huge bonuses of Democracy, and has war weariness. Monarchy lets me finally use MONEY to hurry production (instead of citizens), and of course removes all tile penalties that Despotism has.

 

 

And Calax...how do you have war weariness so early in the game? Do you switch to Republic? Try switching to Monarchy, and war weariness is a problem of the past. Monarchy = the conqueror's government.

[EnderAndrew]

As I avoid war, I usually go to Republic, and then eventually Democracy.

 

Civ 3 also seems to have TONS more corruption. You can have two of your best military units in a city, a police station, etc. and you'll still have plenty of corruption.

 

Why is that?

 

And I usually rushed for the Great Library, but I find it rarely gives anything to me. With the Pyramids, I grow much faster than other civilizations in the early game and establish tons of towns with big populations. That allows me plenty of science points to out research everyone on a huge level for the whole game. There is rarely a technology that 3 Civs have that I don't.

[ShadowPaladin V1.0]

Quick expansion is usually the key. I also like to cull other Civs early on to keep them in line and prevent them becoming serious competition later in the game.

 

That tends to make the middle and end game more managable. I also tend to work on the principle of attack me once and I might let you get away with it. Do it again and your little Civ is going into the lost civilizations book.

[SteveThaiBinh]

Civ 3 also seems to have TONS more corruption.  You can have two of your best military units in a city, a police station, etc. and you'll still have plenty of corruption.

 

Why is that?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I think they were trying to make increasing the size of your civilization a case of diminishing returns. That's the only explanation I can think of. The problem is, it didn't work - it's still usually the largest Civ that wins the game, which to me is quite boring, especially as I tend to play as a pacifist, and only take territory if I'm attacked first. It's also counter-intuitive - there is some link between the size of a country and its power, but it's not as clear-cut as the game makes it.

 

I'd rather have a 'quality of life' victory - that by getting all your citizens university-educated, with access to all luxuries and very happy, you could win.

[EnderAndrew]

I'd rather have a 'quality of life' victory - that by getting all your citizens university-educated, with access to all luxuries and very happy, you could win.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I think the Culture victory represents that. If a society takes care of the basic needs of survival, they move onto establishing culture.

[SteveThaiBinh]

I think the Culture victory represents that.  If a society takes care of the basic needs of survival, they move onto establishing culture.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Not very effectively, in my experience, at least. Where I've won with a Culture Victory, it's usually been where I could easily have won with a Space Race or even Domination Victory, but held back deliberately. I hope they rebalance it in CivIV.

[alanschu]

As I avoid war, I usually go to Republic, and then eventually Democracy.

 

Civ 3 also seems to have TONS more corruption.  You can have two of your best military units in a city, a police station, etc. and you'll still have plenty of corruption.

 

Why is that?

 

And I usually rushed for the Great Library, but I find it rarely gives anything to me.  With the Pyramids, I grow much faster than other civilizations in the early game and establish tons of towns with big populations.  That allows me plenty of science points to out research everyone on a huge level for the whole game.  There is rarely a technology that 3 Civs have that I don't.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

 

Fair Enough. I liked it because all that time spent not researching other stuff is nullified right away.

 

Keep in mind you only get stuff from the Great Library if you actually have contact with 3 separate civs. If you have contact with all the civs, then you'll pretty much get every tech that has been researched up until that point. One time I jumped right into the next age because of the Great Library. It's also nice for the culture bonus, so I usually try to put it in a place that I want huge culture from.

 

 

The corruption may be higher, but some quick restructuring of your palace/forbidden palace can make things take care of themselves. I usually have no real problems trying to manage corruption until I get faaaaaaaar away from my core cities.

[EnderAndrew]

Maybe I have so much corruption because of running with Republic or Democracy.

[alanschu]

Actually, I think Democracy offers the least amount of corruption.

 

 

The distance from your palace/forbidden palace makes a HUGE impact however.

[EnderAndrew]

I expand too much, but I think I've had corruption issues next to my palace as well.

[alanschu]

I usually don't see any corruption until maybe twenty shields (but I think more), and even then it's 1

 

It might have something to do with my Nation. I almost always play as the Germans.

[ShadowPaladin V1.0]

I usually play as the English or the Celts.

 

If it wasnt in a box in the attic somewhere I'd probably have to dig it out for nostalgias sake.

[Walsingham]

I thought that one of the best things about Civ 3, and by the sound of it, Civ 4 are the leaders. They let you do all kinds of fun stuff, and the capacity to build armies (more accurately corps, but who cares?) was great. I always use my first leader to build an army, since that lets you go down the military small wonders route, with the academy and the Pentagon. Once you begin cranking out armies at will, you can duff just about anyone up.

 

Last night I was playing as Babylon (not a single leader appeared to my chagrin), and developed a new military ethic. Essentially, rather than conduct a campaign of conquest, which creates consolidation problems, I simply collected four of my best defensive units and set off trundling across enemy territory. Knights, cavalry, and artillery follow this lump, and like a biblical plague lay waste to all in their path. A second similar polyglot follows on behind, and assaults cities you have denuded of food support - burning them to the ground. Occasionally, very good sites can be dominated by hilltop cities, built like military bases, but otherwise you just destroy. If the resourecs are available, forts can be built by a corps of sappers, following on behind, that will permit the movement of damaged units out, and fresh units in, in safety.

 

 

This tactic is much easier to employ than normal fighting methods, and can be used in a Democracy, because you can stop fighting when war weariness goes too far, secure in the knowledge that you have probably crippled one opponent for at least a hundred or so years.

[Deraldin]

Correuption also depends on how many cities you have. Depending on the size of the map you have a larger or smaller "Optimal City Value". If you have more cities than this then you start experiencing massive corruption in all cities except capitals and those right nearby.

 

I once had half of a huge map conquered just so that the enemy couldn't use it. I got no use out of it at all because of the massive corruption everywhere that on the border was basically You get to keep 1 out of every 50 shields while the other 49 are lost to corruption. I gave up trying to build up these cities normally and went into massive tax hike mode so I could afford to just buy buildings in all of them as that is the only way I could get anything in them.

 

The Optimal City Value is 64 for huge maps and for each level smaller you go down it divides by two. (Large 32, Normal 16 and so on...) I modified the rules in my game to double this limit and now corruption is a lot more manageable.

 

 

Anyway on anything above Monarch I adopt a warmongering approach for the first age or two. Going out with a core of swordsmen and capturing as many enemy cities as I can. I let my research fall to zero and just trade techs with other computers. I like to serve as a buffer between civs where they don't know there is anyone on the other side of me. That way I can buy techs from the first computer to trade for other techs to the computer on the opposite side which I can turn around and trade for something from the first computer. "

 

Mid to late game I go pacifist unless someone attacks me in which case I mobilize my huge army that was left over from my early warmongering which has been upgraded through the ages, which allows me to totally annihilate just about anyone else. "

[Reveilled]

I find one of the most fun ways to play the game is to have a tiny map with every civ on it. With every civ about 2 spaces apart from another, everybody is at war almost constantly.