Civ 4 - Excited? [UPDATED pt.2 - Game is out & now PATCHED! Share your thoughts.]

[John Crichton]

The issues with a gazzillion graphics cards that (theoretically) are adequate for the game, yet cause Blue Screens of Death, Crashes to Desktop, and indcredibly bogged down play on largers maps. I've had to shelve the game for the past two weeks due to the issues. When the patch comes out, I'll give it another shot. Until then, I prefer not to have my PC blow up every third turn.

Ah, interesting. I still haven't played a game past 1750 yet (keep restarting to try and master the early eras) so I dunno if I'll have the same problems. Hmmm.

The only graphical problem I'm having (fixed the skipping wonder movies a few weeks back) is that the mini-map distorts a bit whenever my turn ends. Tweaking the anti-aliasing setting in-game fixes it but it happens often. It would be nice if they could fix that and optimize the graphics a bit more.

I'm running a:

2.8g P4
1 gig ram
GeForce 6800 (128mb)

I'm happy overall with the performance on my PC. Gonna test those late-game bugs later today... *crosses fingers*

 

[cignus_pfaccari]

So, I'm posting from my parents' house, and discovered that neither of their computers will actually handle the game at all. The new one doesn't have much of anything of a graphics card (Dad didn't think to add on from the default Dell), and the old one needs new drivers, and isn't hooked up to the Net, and is in a crappy position, and, well, ugh.

So, instead of stomping over some poor defenseless other civilization, I'm reduced to shooting pool and watching TV and petting an older dog until Friday night, when I go home.

Dang it.

Brad

 

[Man in the Funny Hat]

I had just bought a new Emachine and topped it off with a nice, added PCX from Radeon in order to try Quake4 so it has no trouble whatever with C4. I've played through a couple games at low difficulty to try and get a feel for the new workings. I think I have a fair amount of it now but without anyone actually attacking me - ever - it's not giving me a proper demonstration of the military side of the game. I just crank out turn after turn opting for all the science and culture techs and proceeding to space race victory.

Only after stepping up one difficulty level did I get a wake-up call in the late game that I still had single warriors for defense of cities against gunpowder units and that I'd been dithering around so much with this and that to where I hadn't noticed how far behind one of the other civs I actually was. When I saw them building spaceship parts and I hadn't even gotten the tech for it yet I realized I was in trouble and ultimately ran out of time.

Culture sure doesn't seem to have any significant effect upon the computer civs. I've had my cultural borders surrounding size 1 enemy cities. A single square 2 deep within my own borders and buliding every cultural wonder without any effect. Although the first game I played one neighboring city did defect to my side about 5 turns before I won. But obviously you can't effectively take computer territory through culture. Lesson #1.

Haven't yet gotten to tinkering with creating specialists at all except adding a few Great People as permanent specialists. I don't feel like I've quite gotten the point or effectiveness of religion yet and I've been assuming it simply doesn't have a big effect until higher difficulty levels kick in some of the need for micromanagement.

The "less land available = fewer cities" makes for an interesting change in dynamics of expansion. I think having "new world" maps with all the civs starting on one continent and everything else being ripe for picking is going to be where it's at for me. This last game I played I hadn't really bothered with navy or ocean exploration until well into the modern era. Found an "untapped" continent and as soon as I started to colonize it walked away with the game - and simultaneously faced my only military "challenge" in having to fend off streams of waiting barbarain units and beat down their size 11 and 12 cities (yet too easy with late-game gunpowder/tanks vs. archers and early gunpowder.) Other computer civs had a few ciites off the original continent but apparantly had trouble just holding their own or something.

The game LOOKS great and I have no complaints as yet as I start to move to higher difficulty levels and learn more of the changes.

 

[Simplicity]

Only after stepping up one difficulty level did I get a wake-up call in the late game that I still had single warriors for defense of cities against gunpowder units and that I'd been dithering around so much with this and that to where I hadn't noticed how far behind one of the other civs I actually was. When I saw them building spaceship parts and I hadn't even gotten the tech for it yet I realized I was in trouble and ultimately ran out of time.

Deja vu. The single warrior defense is a serious invitation for a war. Even friendly AIs will attack you if you leave a very weak military around.

Culture sure doesn't seem to have any significant effect upon the computer civs. I've had my cultural borders surrounding size 1 enemy cities. A single square 2 deep within my own borders and buliding every cultural wonder without any effect. Although the first game I played one neighboring city did defect to my side about 5 turns before I won. But obviously you can't effectively take computer territory through culture. Lesson #1.

There are certain situations where culture will not work unless you change options. It wasn't one of your old cities, was it? Basically, every square has a percentage culture. If this percent gets too low, then there's a chance of revolt every turn. You can see these effects in your affected cities. It works the same way for the AI. It's VERY hard to culturally flip an established, large city. Supposedly not that hard for smaller ones (though I've never seen it happen myself... Haven't really tried though. Usually easier to just wheel some catapults up and take the dang thing).

Haven't yet gotten to tinkering with creating specialists at all except adding a few Great People as permanent specialists. I don't feel like I've quite gotten the point or effectiveness of religion yet and I've been assuming it simply doesn't have a big effect until higher difficulty levels kick in some of the need for micromanagement.

Religion = CASH + diplomacy effects + culture/happiness.
Building shrines from Great Prophets can be very profitable.
At higher difficulties, Temples are one of the only early ways to increase city happiness without luxury resources. But, when you build a religion, you risk alienating your neighbors if the religion isn't adopted by them. A religious difference between you and a bordering neighbor is almost certainly going to lead to war.

There are various strategies here. Found a religon and go for cash... Stay in a No-State-Religion, and keep your neighbors from declaring you heathens.

The game LOOKS great and I have no complaints as yet as I start to move to higher difficulty levels and learn more of the changes.

Things start to make more sense as you move to higher levels. At the low levels, the theaters, temples, colloseums all seem superfluous. The culture slider... who the heck would use that? But as you get higher, there's one less happy guy and one less heathiness point per city... They become invaluable. Police stations start to be something you'd actually consider building.

And the barbarians... Ouch. They get mean.

 

[John Crichton]

Culture sure doesn't seem to have any significant effect upon the computer civs. I've had my cultural borders surrounding size 1 enemy cities. A single square 2 deep within my own borders and buliding every cultural wonder without any effect. Although the first game I played one neighboring city did defect to my side about 5 turns before I won. But obviously you can't effectively take computer territory through culture. Lesson #1.

Haven't yet gotten to tinkering with creating specialists at all except adding a few Great People as permanent specialists. I don't feel like I've quite gotten the point or effectiveness of religion yet and I've been assuming it simply doesn't have a big effect until higher difficulty levels kick in some of the need for micromanagement.

Culture is huge, but just like war, you have to try and win that way. If there are cities near my civ with less than size 7 they will be mine shortly. Drop a Great Artist or move the culture sliders up plus making a wonder or 2 in the area will certainly make the city revolt and join my civ.

And as for taking computer territory through culture, you most certainly can. Now if you are trying to take areas that are already secured by a few huge cities than that is dumb but if they are a bit smaller than yours and away from the capital you can absolutely cripple the other civ by using the same methods I mentioned above. They can do the same thing but the key is to stay ahead.

 

[TheAuldGrump]

I have an oddball question (and I do mean odd...) How good would Civ IV be for creating the background for a campaign?

Strange as it may sound that is part of how I created the background for my homebrew - using Civ II way back when D&D 3 came out, taking screenshots evry turn or two to cover what was going on with the war that is raging in the background (using a Thirty Years War scenario that I found on the web for the tech tree and etc. and creating the map by hand - looking strangely like a slightly larger Europe...)

I never finished playing the Civ 2 game, just running it to the point where I thought the players would reach level 10 or so, and became a factor in the game world. Unlike the real world someone is deliberately causing the war... and the PCs can end the war a bit early.

The Auld Grump, what a miserable war that was...

 

[John Crichton]

I have an oddball question (and I do mean odd...) How good would Civ IV be for creating the background for a campaign?

Strange as it may sound that is part of how I created the background for my homebrew - using Civ II way back when D&D 3 came out, taking screenshots evry turn or two to cover what was going on with the war that is raging in the background (using a Thirty Years War scenario that I found on the web for the tech tree and etc. and creating the map by hand - looking strangely like a slightly larger Europe...)

There's no reason that you couldn't do the same thing with this game.

Personally, I would use the World Builder to create my own map and print it out for the gameworld. The maps are beautiful.

 

[Simplicity]

There's no reason that you couldn't do the same thing with this game.

Personally, I would use the World Builder to create my own map and print it out for the gameworld. The maps are beautiful.

Agreed. You can directly edit the maps and place units with the world builder. Plus, you have quite a bit of control over your camera. It would work for anything from battlefield maps to campaign maps.

You can even place lines and labels on the Civ4 maps using the "Strategy Layer". So, I can name landmarks like "The Sea of Sorrows". Or "Exfrenchieland" (Louis is always declaring war on me).

 

[John Crichton]

Or "Exfrenchieland" (Louis is always declaring war on me).

Many of my save files have titles. A common title is "Stupid French attack. Again!"

I just started a new game yesterday and no sign of them. Yet. I still haven't met the last 2 civs...

 

[TheAuldGrump]

There's no reason that you couldn't do the same thing with this game.

Personally, I would use the World Builder to create my own map and print it out for the gameworld. The maps are beautiful.

Agreed. You can directly edit the maps and place units with the world builder. Plus, you have quite a bit of control over your camera. It would work for anything from battlefield maps to campaign maps.

You can even place lines and labels on the Civ4 maps using the "Strategy Layer". So, I can name landmarks like "The Sea of Sorrows". Or "Exfrenchieland" (Louis is always declaring war on me).

Cool, that is what I was hoping for!

The Auld Grump