GRcade

Making a new thread because my attempts to generate interest in the old one didn't work and new threads are never a bad thing.

I've been playing a lot of Civilization IV: Beyond the Sword recently. I'm not very good at it But there's so much content to be bad at. I recently learned the cheats, for example. And I love the unrestricted leaders. Most of my saved games are just puns based on the combination of Leader and Civ e.g. Churchill & Native Americans: "Sitting Bulldog". Mao Zedong and Arabs: "Maodi Arabia".

I spent a few hours just playing with the Great Wall mechanic as I didn't realise at first it puts a physical wall around the cultural boundaries of your entire civilization. Next I think I'm going to play an earth map as one of the Communist leaders and build my own Iron Curtain.

I really have no idea how you guys managed to make online play a thing, I reckon I would get wiped out early on every time. Most of the time the only reason my civ survives the early rounds is because of a lack of threat or a convenient isolation - it takes so long to actually build up and get anywhere. 15 turns to build a warrior? If the barbarians got their act together they could club me off the map in that time. Most of my victories have been Space Race. And then I think maybe one each of Cultural and Diplomatic. A few time victories but more of my recent games haven't lasted until the end, many simply out of a desire to play a new map. I've never legitimately won a conquest victory (or is it called a domination victory?)

Tried a few of the mods but they're basically completely different games. One I tried was basically a sci-fi RPG made using the Civ engine. Not for me. Anyone got any recommendations as to which ones are best to try out?

Anyway, I'd basically be interested to hear if anyone's still playing this, or what your favourite memories / best tips are.

Try Civilization V: Brave New World it is the best Civilization IV expansion

OrangeRakoon wrote:Try Civilization V: Brave New World it is the best Civilization IV expansion

Yeah you're probably right I'm sure Civ V is fantastic and I'm sure I'll pick it up someday and become addicted but for now let's chat about IV please

Had Civ II back in the day a played it a reasonable amount. Think it was Civ IV or V I picked up in a humble bundle or something and I just don't have the time to play it.

IV > V

If you're still having some bother Dan, it's worth checking out some of the articles at CivFanatics, they helped me a lot when I started playing. In particular Sulla's walkthrough is a good read (Here) as he's someone who worked as a tester on the base game and explains mechanics pretty well.

I struggle to believe the portion of the civ fanbase that actually claims unit stacking to be a better system to Civ V's approach of unit's occupying tiles. For me, that clearly marks V out as the better game. Hexes are also much better than tiles.

Thanks Sykes Will give those a read.

Civ V BNW is perhaps a slightly more polished game, but I have some fantastic memories of Civ IV BTS and I'd love to go back to it one day. Finding the time for a Civ campaign is pretty difficult nowadays but one day I'll do it!

V > IV > II > I > III

Karl wrote:Civ V BNW is perhaps a slightly more polished game, but I have some fantastic memories of Civ IV BTS and I'd love to go back to it one day. Finding the time for a Civ campaign is pretty difficult nowadays but one day I'll do it!

One of my fav civ4 memories is the MP game that turned into a 4v4. On the borders of the conflict were me and Karl, constantly culture bombing a single city and changing the name to something offensive. Each team poured all their resources into creating culture units and then gifting them to either me or Karl just to take a single city.

OrangeRakoon wrote:I struggle to believe the portion of the civ fanbase that actually claims unit stacking to be a better system to Civ V's approach of unit's occupying tiles. For me, that clearly marks V out as the better game. Hexes are also much better than tiles.

There are minor problems associated with unit stacking but the switch to one unit per tile seemed to just be over the top in terms of trying to fix them. Any sort of decent sized war became a nuisance due to the combo of 1UPT combined with the failure on the developers part to make the maps large enough to cope.

Ironhide wrote:V > IV > II > I > III

This is the correct order.

V: Brave New World > IV: BTS > II > V > IV > III

That being said II is probably my favourite due to the movies for the world wonders, and also because airplanes acted like normal units. It is a bit weird to have a plane be defeated by a swordsman, but it makes sense that they have range and can bomb multiple targets in one turn. Also you could have kamikaze's and do more complex bombing runs.

I really enjoy IV as well, like someone else said, the guides on Civ Fanatics are great, I think they have a starter guide that helped me advance at least two difficulty levels.

PsychicSykes wrote:

OrangeRakoon wrote:I struggle to believe the portion of the civ fanbase that actually claims unit stacking to be a better system to Civ V's approach of unit's occupying tiles. For me, that clearly marks V out as the better game. Hexes are also much better than tiles.

There are minor problems associated with unit stacking but the switch to one unit per tile seemed to just be over the top in terms of trying to fix them. Any sort of decent sized war became a nuisance due to the combo of 1UPT combined with the failure on the developers part to make the maps large enough to cope.

With unit stacking wars just become exercises in crashing one huge stack of units into another. There are no tactics really involved, and taking cities especially becomes a chore more than anything.

1UPT forces you to actually be strategic in unit movement as it allows for flanking manoeuvres (especially with unit direction being a thing) and having actual battle lines on the map. Breaking through or passing around a group of melee units to take out the weaker ranged units, for example, is something much more nuanced in Civ V. You actually have to think about unit placement and movement and the logistics of how you are going to move around and position your units. City sieges become a lot more involved and fun, and it can inform city placement (for example having a city with only one land tile leading into it will limit the number of units that can be sent in to attack each turn, creating a much more defensible position).

As for map size, surely they are plenty big enough? I normally play on small or normal and still have never felt confined when it comes to combat.

OrangeRakoon wrote:

PsychicSykes wrote:

OrangeRakoon wrote:I struggle to believe the portion of the civ fanbase that actually claims unit stacking to be a better system to Civ V's approach of unit's occupying tiles. For me, that clearly marks V out as the better game. Hexes are also much better than tiles.

There are minor problems associated with unit stacking but the switch to one unit per tile seemed to just be over the top in terms of trying to fix them. Any sort of decent sized war became a nuisance due to the combo of 1UPT combined with the failure on the developers part to make the maps large enough to cope.

With unit stacking wars just become exercises in crashing one huge stack of units into another. There are no tactics really involved, and taking cities especially becomes a chore more than anything.

1UPT forces you to actually be strategic in unit movement as it allows for flanking manoeuvres (especially with unit direction being a thing) and having actual battle lines on the map. Breaking through or passing around a group of melee units to take out the weaker ranged units, for example, is something much more nuanced in Civ V. You actually have to think about unit placement and movement and the logistics of how you are going to move around and position your units. City sieges become a lot more involved and fun, and it can inform city placement (for example having a city with only one land tile leading into it will limit the number of units that can be sent in to attack each turn, creating a much more defensible position).

As for map size, surely they are plenty big enough? I normally play on small or normal and still have never felt confined when it comes to combat.

I endorse this post. I always calculate my sieges and skirmishes to maximise the effectiveness of my units, given the limits of 1UPT. The alternative would result in me just throwing waves of troops in any manner which would get boring fast.

One of my favourite civ 5 wars demonstrates the added complexity nicely I think. I can't remember the civ involved, but essentially there was a another civ to the North of me with about 15 tiles of unclaimed land between our respective borders. I had a couple of units up there just to keep track of what was happening (and to deal with any barbarian camps that appeared in the unclaimed land) when I noticed a large number of units moving South out of the civ heading towards my border. It was obvious they were going to declare war on me, so before they could all line up neatly along my border I moved round my units so that I had half on my border facing them, mostly ranged with a few melee, and the other half who were all melee or horse-like units in the unclaimed land just east of the path they were taking to move their units down. I preemptively declared war and bombarded their troops closest to my border with ranged attacks while simultaneously sending in my units above them to quickly destroy their own ranged units who were undefended and still spread out as they moved south. The very next turn they tried to turn their army around and run back to their own border, but their units ran straight into my northern half and were decimated by being trapped between two lines. It was beautiful.

If unit stacking was involved, their entire army would have approached my border in a single block and preemptively attacking would have been only marginally advantageous at best, as the war would have just been two stacks smashing into each other.

Not that I haven't had plenty of good wars in previous civ games mind!

Started playing Civ 4 again because of this thread. Always play on easier difficulties because I'm a sucker. Doing a 24 civ world map as Mother Russia. Expanded my empire as far east as I could before turning round and am now attacking Western Europe so I can have a gate way to the Americas. The Romans and Germans have already felt my wrath! Next up is the French and then the Celts.

Anything above Prince difficulty is just false difficulty anyway. The game doesn't actually get better, it just gives itself unfair advantages (like quicker production times) to make things harder for you. It's the reason I never play above Prince.

OrangeRakoon wrote:Anything above Prince difficulty is just false difficulty anyway. The game doesn't actually get better, it just gives itself unfair advantages (like quicker production times) to make things harder for you. It's the reason I never play above Prince.

Good to know, cheers!

I got Civ 3 in the recent Humble Bundle pack so will be firing that up when I have a spare evening.

Kanbei wrote:Started playing Civ 4 again because of this thread. Always play on easier difficulties because I'm a sucker. Doing a 24 civ world map as Mother Russia. Expanded my empire as far east as I could before turning round and am now attacking Western Europe so I can have a gate way to the Americas. The Romans and Germans have already felt my wrath! Next up is the French and then the Celts.

Declared war on France but they got the Chinese involved, made the Celts my vassals and set all my forces east. Managed to get a few of their cities but I wasn't properly prepared for an eastern invasion, luckily they capitulated quickly and now the Chinese are mine