Civilization 4

[alanschu]

If you reread my original message, I wasnt saying consoles better, I wasnt saying people should stop buying or playing PC games. Just said I was done (which is sad kinda as I have ever Civ game ever made and have played them all to completion "except 4 as just got it week or so ago"). But even Civ 4 pushing my puter limits now so the statement is relative in that manner.

 

 

I know that's what you said. But there was no reason to state it in this thread. If you want to talk about how you're done with PC games, why don't you create a new thread about it instead of taking this one off topic?

Edited November 10, 2005 by alanschu

[Missy]

Anyways moving on.  My friend says he really enjoys it and considers it way better than Civ 3 and Civ 2.  It's on my Christmas list at #1a so here's hoping :D

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

At 1a? What's at 1b? :ph34r:

 

Antimatter: Don't expand to quickly. You'll drive yourself into the ground with maintenance costs from your cities and possibly leave yourself open to attack. Stupid barbarians. You're not supposed to attack my undefended cities! <_<

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

I tested this out while playing around yesterday. Damn those barbarians - they razed Hastings to the ground!

 

My first game went a lot better - time based victory. Wheeeeee. It should be noted that I played for about five hours...straight. And so the Civ addiction recommences.

 

I'm seriously considering reinstalling SMAC too, if I can get it to work ok that is.

[Darque]

If you can't get Smac to work normally, there is a fix you can do by tweaking the config file (smac doesn't like newer processors)

[Missy]

If you can't get Smac to work normally, there is a fix you can do by tweaking the config file (smac doesn't like newer processors)

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

 

Ok, I'll have to have a hunt around, thanks.

 

Note to all: I have split off some of the continuing discussion on PCs and upgrade costs etc, you will find this discussion in this thread. A couple of the posts split off do partially relate to the other non-Civ discussion of game choices, apologies for that but it was an awkward split.

 

Lets stick to Civ4 and more closely related topics in here.

[Darque]

I'll save you the trouble

 

(I keep SMAC bookmarked at gamefaqs so the information is always on hand)

 

You should do this if you get the "your cpu is not supported" error message.

 

from a post on gamefaqs...

 

Anyway, open up the Alpha Centauri.ini file in the SMAC folder, find "ForceOldVoxelAlgorithm=0", change 0 to 1. The message will still come up, but it won't close when you hit okay.

[Missy]

Thanks Darque, much appreciated.

 

Back to Civ4 - I like the new religion and government approaches. This game feels more Civ than Civilisation 3 did. Even though I had a Civ3 addiction for a while, it wasn't quite this good.

 

I played the tutorial to "get into the swing". Nice idea, but I hit a block when Sid wanted me to create a farm in a tile that had jungle and I didn't have bronzeworking...so couldn't...and then couldn't go any further...or do anything else really. Not sure what happened there.

[Enoch]

I'm having a blast with this game so far. The AI is impressing me in that they will attack if they detect weakness. In my current (Prince level) game as Elizabeth, I had a decent points lead in the late medieval, but I had sorely neglected my military. All of a sudden, Alexander, who had always been quite friendly to me, delcares war on me, and razes some fishing nets with a caravel. A turn later I spot a huge stack of war elephants, horse archers, and catapults moving my way through Malinese territory. If I didn't have a line of sight on all of Mali's cities through their conversion to Judaism, I never would've had time to prepare my defenses, and I might have lost London!

 

As it was, I had to jack up my tax rate to promote old units, and switch production to pikemen and elephants in all of my major cities just to get by. The AI also used its catapults effectively to thin out a 4-unit stack I formed. The only thing they could've done better would have been to include some infantry in the attack force. If there were some macemen or longbowmen protecting the mounted units, my pikemen would've had some serious trouble.

[Oerwinde]

So is anyone else having severe problems with the multiplayer? Me and my roommate have been trying to do some LAN sessions but we can never get very far due to disconnections, crashing, and hanging. The single player works fine, but the multiplayer is almost unplayable.

[metadigital]

I am just installing the game now ... ... so I mayn't see you all for a little while ...

[alanschu]

Fare thee well metadigital.

 

We hardly knew ye...

 

[SteveThaiBinh]

Watch out for the Aztecs. Never trust a guy who's wearing a skull in his hair.

[Cantousent]

I keep playing and enjoying this game.

 

The people I love to hate...

 

Catherine the warmonger (I hate it when she slaps me)

 

Nappy or Louis the warmongers

 

Incan warmongers

 

People I love to love...

 

Frederick the decent fellow

 

Washington the decent fellow

 

Cyrus the decent fellow

 

Favorite person to play: FDR

[Reveilled]

Catherine's a good ally if you stay on her good side. If you give her help when she asks for it, she'll happily give you the same in return.

 

Since she is rather often one of the most powerful civs, getting on her good side is a pretty good idea.

[Oerwinde]

The two I hate the most are Tokugawa and Isabella. Isabella because I can never have decent relations with her due to me not converting to Buddhism(She has Buddhism EVERY time) and Tokugawa is just a ****.

 

Cyrus is always one of the big ones, and he tends to be easy to get along with, which is nice. I even managed to get a permanent alliance with him once.

[Reveilled]

The two I hate the most are Tokugawa and Isabella. Isabella because I can never have decent relations with her due to me not converting to Buddhism(She has Buddhism EVERY time) and Tokugawa is just a ****.

 

Cyrus is always one of the big ones, and he tends to be easy to get along with, which is nice. I even managed to get a permanent alliance with him once.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

All the leaders are pretty much like their real-life counterparts. Isabella wasn't exactly known for her religious tolerance, nor Tokugawa for his open and friendly relations with outher countries. "

[Oerwinde]

The two I hate the most are Tokugawa and Isabella. Isabella because I can never have decent relations with her due to me not converting to Buddhism(She has Buddhism EVERY time) and Tokugawa is just a ****.

 

Cyrus is always one of the big ones, and he tends to be easy to get along with, which is nice. I even managed to get a permanent alliance with him once.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

All the leaders are pretty much like their real-life counterparts. Isabella wasn't exactly known for her religious tolerance, nor Tokugawa for his open and friendly relations with outher countries. "

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Tokugawa actually was pretty open. It was his successors who weren't.

[metadigital]

Man, I just played the tutorial and I lost about half a day! I was just testing out the playability of it (obviously passed the test!), so I didn't spend loads of time reading the manual or even scanning the tech tree, I just played "by ear".

 

That game is sooooooooooooo sneaky, I don't even realise that I'm playing it (just one more turn; just one). I have taken the DVD out of my drive and put it back in the cover and put it away, lest I be tempted to "have a quick game".

 

Some initial observations:

• Turns take normal amount of time; all the bananas that complained about the turns taking too long obviously have never played Civ before (or have Alzheimers); the time after a turn finishes is full of the other players completing their turns.
  
• Graphics look fantastic.
  
• My jimmy jango it is a complex game.
  
• This is good because it means an unimaginable amount of replays ahead. This is bad for the same reason.
  
• I liked the limiting options (size of map, number of oponents, etc) as illustrated in the tutorial: I can well believe it is possible to have a "quick" game.
  
• I (mostly) like the improvements to the structure of the game law; the fact that Wonders have been watered-down and multiplied makes for an interesting battle of strategies: I can well see that "Golden Ages" and pet technologies for a particular Civ will be pitted against the others, best against best. This is really interesting.
  
• Mr Nimoy did phone in some of his performance; I can tell when he is saying something if he believes in it, or not.
  
• This game is dangerous. ("Snacks are good in small quantities.")
  

[Enoch]

On the leader triats:

 

Financial is a bit overpowered. Financial + cottage spam = tech lead.

 

Organized is very weak. Civic upkeep just doesn't cost enough that its worth taking a trait that halves it. Cheap courthouses are nice though.

 

Expansive's usefulness is directly dependant on the difficulty level you're playing on. Below Monarch, it's marginal. Above that, though, the lower threshold for health problems makes it very handy.

 

Industrious and Philosophical are both quite nice for generating more great people, wonders, and culture. Both solid choices for a peaceful game.

 

Aggressive is the warmonger's choice. Haven't play around with it much myself.

 

Creative is useful in the land grab, and good for conquerors who want to get cultural production up without rushing a theatre in captured cities. Kublai (Agg/Cre) looks like a great choice for warmongers. For more peaceful types, it's basically a crutch for the early game.

 

Spiritual is OK. The one turn anarchies never hurt that much, but cheap temples are great. Also, changing civics on a whim every 5 turns or so can really help ("hmm... half of my cities are building units to modernize their defenses-- might be good to go to theocracy for a few turns...").

 

Personally, I'm a little bit too hooked on the advantages of financial. So Elizabeth (fin/phi), Qin Shi Huang (fin/ind), and Mansa Musa (fin/spi) are my favorites.

[Pidesco]

This thread makes me cry.

 

I've been a civ addict for the past 13 years (I just counted). I played Civ1 regularly for about 4 or 5 years. I can't afford to buy the game right now, and even if that wasn't true, my computer probably can't handle the game anyway. I visit this thread so that I can imagine how great it would be if I could play Civ4 right now. :'(

 

I need my Civ4 fix. I'm pathetic.

[Darque]

Yup

 

j/k

 

I have to admit I'm rather curious about this game now

[julianw]

A quick question: does anyone know how the inflation rate works? It's eating up my research money.

[Cantousent]

In my view, the cottage builds are hugely overpowered in the mid to late game. By the time you get all the goodies, you're raking in cash, financial trait or not.

[julianw]

I have a different approach though. I always emphasize food and production first so I can grab as much land as possible then I start working on my commerce.

 

The problem is that my inflation rate is a whopping 22%! It costs more than my upkeep money. Doesn't inflation rate usually stay around 3~5% for a healthy economy?

Edited November 22, 2005 by julianw

[Darque]

How well does communism work in this game?

[julianw]

Haven't gotten that far yet, but Communism looks promising with 'state property' civic which gets rid of all city maintenances and could cut the financial spending in half.

 

Another thing I noticed is that wonders are not as important any more.