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

[DaveMage]

missionaries are awesome fun. There are indeed a lot less goodie huts in this game, but i've built practically every wonder in my current game, so there are no limits on that at all. There are limits on how many national wonders (heroic epic, pentagon, wall street, broadway) that can be in a particular city, but nothing else.

World Wonders=1 means how many of that particular wonder can be built. It likely is there for mod-makers.

as for balance issues, the more i play, the more i notice that the game is actually very well balanced--i just didnt understand how it worked initially =)

all i know is that i've been up playing nightly from 6pm to 3-4 am =)

Thanks, Talinthas - that helps!

 

[Simplicity]

I still have to learn things about it, like the value of missionaries, etc.

One of the things I don't like so far, is that the number of villiages that provide freebies seemed very small on my first run-through. Also, did I understand it correctly that you are limited in the number of wonders you are permitted to build?

I hope that isn't the case...

A few advantages to missionaries:
1) Having your neighbors be your religion helps to keep them on friendly terms with you. Different religions can quickly lead to war.
2) Build a shrine with a Great Prophet. Every converted city gives you a gold. This is a big chunk of change as the game progresses.
3) YOUR cities can be converted to your state religion, which will give you more culture and happy.

 

[Simplicity]

I posted this on Apolyton, but I'll post it here too:

Game 1:
Asoka of the Indians. Prince.
Founded Judaism.
Lost first settler to some lions.

Game 1 Comments:
Well, crap. That didn't go well.

Game 2:
Alexander of the Greeks. Prince.
Missed founding every major religion by 1 turn.
Founded a second city.
Dead last in score.
Lost second settler to some wolves.

Game 2 Comments:
Okay. I get it! Protect the settlers! Damn it. It used to be so much easier to sneak a settler out to your borders. Let's tone down the difficulty... My score was looking pretty bad there.

One thing I noticed, there sure are a lot of improvements to research. It'll take a while to understand the full implications of each one.

Game 3:
Saladin of Arabia. Noble.
Went for a pure culture approach this time.
Tried to found Hinduism. Nope.
Tried to found Judaism. Nope.
Managed to found Christianity.
Up to three cities now... Settlers move with warriors.
Built Stonehenge and got Moses, the Great Prophet.
Built a Christian Shrine... Already getting 6 gold from it.
And then the Persians decided that they'd had enough of me. A small group of immortals razed my third city without much effort.

Game 3 comments:
Ouch. It's very easy to fall into the trap of not building ANY military. Archers (the best early defensive unit) are on a dead-end track... When I went down I still had warriors in my cities. It's nice to see that the AI can take advantage of weakness.

Strategy comments:
There are *major* strategic choices that need to be made in each game:
1) On Meditation. It's a one-shot chance at getting a religion. Whereas the Polytheism route can lead to Monotheism if you miss the first religion. BUT... Meditation gives you Monasteries, which give you +10 research each (very useful in early game) and let you build missionaries (only useful later).
2) Archery. It's a dead-end tech, but otherwise you'll be using the more expensive axemen to defend yourself. Spearmen are specialist defenders now, not really the backbone of defense.
3) Copper/Iron. Everything needs it. And it's hard to find... At least it has been for me. Mining can apparently *reveal* copper/iron... That's a nice addition.
4) The Inflection Point. At some point your cities will start producing unhappy people. It's important to make some specialists to curb the growth just BEFORE this happens. Then, when you find more happy, you slowly let the city stretch its legs a bit more.
5) On cottages. Cottages are the most worthless *seeming* improvement. Compared to the other improvements, they're almost painful to build. But, they grow... It really hurts to watch your towns get pillaged.
6) Alphabet. You need this to trade techs. Remember how important that was in the last Civ? It's *still* that important. You just have to go way up the tree to get it.
7) Great people. Build some wonder. Any wonder. If you aren't producing *some* GPPs, then you are wasting an opportunity. Just don't build something that everybody else is already working on.
8) Scouts. You want to scout with scouts, not military. And not just because their movement is higher. They have a better chance of getting goodies from "goodie huts".

 

[DaveMage]

I turn off barbarians in my games (which seems to also turn wild animals off as well).

Doing so makes games much more enjoyable for me.

 

[Zog]

How is the interface? Imagine you have no keyboard - only a mouse. How playable is the game? How many simple right or left clicks versus shift clicks or click and drags to accomplish basic tasks? (for example, a build queue in a town, or to bring up infomation on a square, or switch from overland view to city view?)

I ask because that is basically how I, and my RSI damaged arms, will be playing. Hopefully.

I really want to play the game - but not if I can't play without further injuring myself. :\

 

[Kanegrundar]

You need to be able to hit the enter key. Beyond that it's all mouse driven.

 

[DaveMage]

You need to be able to hit the enter key. Beyond that it's all mouse driven.

Do you? I thought you could click on the little red dot to end your turn as well...

(Or do you need the enter key for some other reason?)

 

[Kanegrundar]

Do you? I thought you could click on the little red dot to end your turn as well...

(Or do you need the enter key for some other reason?)

To close the city screen...unless there is a button I missed. (Which is possible since I didn't get to play it a whole lot last night.)

 

[Simplicity]

To close the city screen...unless there is a button I missed. (Which is possible since I didn't get to play it a whole lot last night.)

You can use the red dot to end turns... I'm not sure how you'd get out of the city screen though... I wouldn't be surprised if there is a way. Besides, you don't HAVE to go into the city screen in the first place...

 

[Kanegrundar]

You can use the red dot to end turns... I'm not sure how you'd get out of the city screen though... I wouldn't be surprised if there is a way. Besides, you don't HAVE to go into the city screen in the first place...

How do you change what the city is building in the middle of a project?