Alright boyz, here we go!! Civilization IV first impressions...

[Eaglesfan27]

Originally Posted by Galaxy

Anyone tell how the UN works, and what it does?

Once you get the appropriate tech (I forget which one off hand) it allows you to build the UN World Wonder. If you are the 1st to build it, you automatically become one of the 2 candidates for the Secretary General position. The other candidate is the leader of the nation with the most people (or 2nd most if you have the most people.)

A few turns after it is built, there will be an election to see who becomes the secretary general. You have to get a certain percentage of the votes. Countries can vote for either candidate or they can abstain. If several countries abstain, there is a possibility that it could take several turns and votes to get the required number to declare a Secretary General.

Once a nation's leader is voted secretary general, they can attempt to pass a variety of rules including no slavery, everyone must ecology, and many others. They can also attempt to get themselves voted as a diplomatic winner which ends the game. I'd imagine a leader would have to be very beloved to make that happen (I've tried and failed to this point.)

[saldana]

Originally Posted by Galaxy

Anyone tell how the UN works, and what it does?

when it is built, it triggers an election for Secretary General. The SecGen is the only person who can call for a UN Resolution vote, (the list of resolutions you can vote on are listed under the victory conditions advisor, under the resolutions screen). This is how you win the diplomatic victory, because one of the resolutions is to select you as king of the world.

If you are the one to build the UN, you are always one of the two candidates for SecGen and King of the World. The other candidate is the person with the largest population in the world. once the UN is up, the vote occurs automatically every 2 turns until someone wins, and then the option to introduce a resolution comes up 2 turns later, i am not sure how often that option comes up, because my game ended (i lost)

[saldana]

so i finished my first real game (i started 2 on settler and got bored) on the warlord level, and came in second to Ghandi's space race victory. I actually was ahead on the scoreboard, and had just been elected secretary general of the UN, but there was little chance for me to get the votes for a diplomatic win. My number one observation at this point would have to be this: you have to decide from the very beginning of the game exactly what victory strategy you are going to pursue. If you want to try for a domination victory, you need to start whacking people very early, because with the amount of time my war against the mongolians lasted, i would never have had enough time to take out the rest of the world... you cant wait until you have tanks and bombers to begin trying to take over the rest of the planet.

This also is part of my biggest complaint: I was the Germans, sharing a continent with the mongols, and british. the other players were ghandi, saladin, alexander, and cyrus, with their corresponding countries. Ghengis Khan attacked me, we swapped a few victories, i took 2 cities, and he sued for peace, which i took, he then attacked the British with the same result. about 400 years later, i attacked him (i needed the coal that was in his territory), and that was the only war in the entire game, none of the computer players ever went to war with one another. they all hated each other (i would get negative points for dealing with some people) but never went to war...i thought this made it too easy for Ghandi to get his space race win.

[Ben E Lou]

I had an accidental reboot. Loading from an autosave. We'll see if CTD returns...

[ISiddiqui]

Originally Posted by Eaglesfan27

Once you get the appropriate tech (I forget which one off hand)

Media, IIRC.

[Calis]

Originally Posted by saldana

so i finished my first real game (i started 2 on settler and got bored) on the warlord level, and came in second to Ghandi's space race victory. I actually was ahead on the scoreboard, and had just been elected secretary general of the UN, but there was little chance for me to get the votes for a diplomatic win. My number one observation at this point would have to be this: you have to decide from the very beginning of the game exactly what victory strategy you are going to pursue. If you want to try for a domination victory, you need to start whacking people very early, because with the amount of time my war against the mongolians lasted, i would never have had enough time to take out the rest of the world... you cant wait until you have tanks and bombers to begin trying to take over the rest of the planet.

This also is part of my biggest complaint: I was the Germans, sharing a continent with the mongols, and british. the other players were ghandi, saladin, alexander, and cyrus, with their corresponding countries. Ghengis Khan attacked me, we swapped a few victories, i took 2 cities, and he sued for peace, which i took, he then attacked the British with the same result. about 400 years later, i attacked him (i needed the coal that was in his territory), and that was the only war in the entire game, none of the computer players ever went to war with one another. they all hated each other (i would get negative points for dealing with some people) but never went to war...i thought this made it too easy for Ghandi to get his space race win.

I think you'll find them to be much more aggressive as you go up in difficulty. I haven't really noticed a real glaring lack of wars on Noble, it's not as rampant as it was in past Civs because it's a helluva lot harder to succesfully win a war, but I saw quite a few going on in the last game I played.

I also saw quite a few declared and nothing happen, so take it for what it's worth.

I noticed a pretty big jump in aggressiveness from Warlord to Noble when I moved up. I might be completely off on that, but it seems like it.

[Eilim]

Originally Posted by Calis

I think you'll find them to be much more aggressive as you go up in difficulty. I haven't really noticed a real glaring lack of wars on Noble, it's not as rampant as it was in past Civs because it's a helluva lot harder to succesfully win a war, but I saw quite a few going on in the last game I played.

I also saw quite a few declared and nothing happen, so take it for what it's worth.

I noticed a pretty big jump in aggressiveness from Warlord to Noble when I moved up. I might be completely off on that, but it seems like it.

Not sure how much level plays into it.(Have only played on noble, myself.) I think alot has to do with your luck on which other Civs get picked and how there positioned against eachother. Get more than one or two of the "aggressive" civs and you'll probably have wars throughout reign *if* they can have some early success.

Have only a few of the warlike ones and the other civs lucky enough to hold them back in their early expansion... They'll tend to fall behind enough that the value of war for them is so low they'll stay out of trouble for a good while.

[Ben E Lou]

Interesting situation with regard to culture flipping and military. If my memory is correct, Andahuaylas had its population as high as 17 at one point. I've thrown three or four culture bombs at them from Arretium over the years. Check out the military they've got in the town, which I'm assuming is the only thing keeping them from flipping.

[Ben E Lou]

Oh...and it is nice that Future Tech actually *does* something finally.

[Eilim]

Just tried something and thought I'd pass this along.

If you want an.. ummm.. Interesting experience, try a standard size Highland map, all variables set to random. Have raging barbarians turned on and run it with the Insane Barbarians Mod .

I'd suggest a minumum of "Noble" difficulty or the AIs might have a problem dealing with the barbarians. I'd also suggest a CIV with a scout starter if you can take it, beacause within 4 turns the outside of my cultural borders looked liked some bad Wild Kingdoms episode. Seems the animal spawns are tweaked by the Insane Barbarian mod a wee bit.

Got my ass handed too me the first try, and about to give it another shot. Have to say it really gives that feel of being a primitive tribe trying to carve your way out of the wilds.

[Eilim]

Oh boy, at the point these pics were taken, I had just finished my second scout a turn or two ago. After my intials scouts recon north and having to retreat back within my borders to heal (took out two wolves before having to run.) I sent him west and he didn't make it back this time. Killed a bear before being jumped by another wolf.

Brought my other scout over to try some hit and run tactics to try and thin the animal population. Not sure yet if they'll cross the cultural border to attack, but don't believe so.

I have a feeling this is going to be a *real* slow expansion.







Not sure my second game is going to go much better than my first. Atleast I take some comfort in the thinking the other civs are probably not doing much better than myself at this point.

Going to stop trying to explore for a bit and focus on improving my starting city and pushing those borders out.

[Buccaneer]

I am beginning to believe that whoever said that having a winning goal defined early on is right on. I just spent 200 years (1450-1650) fighting the Mongols and all I got were 3 large cities...and there are 3 more large ones left (even though I don't know their defensive situation). I just saw the other continent with 4 more civs and I'm willing to bet that there's at least 20 large cities there. Even if I get to modern warfare first, it would be too much. I could form an alliance to let them fight it out among themselves but the victor would become too strong.

Since I am playing this first game trying to do everything, it will end up being not enough for any particular victory except for the space race, plus maybe the UN. Up to now I was dabbling in every kind of techs, building a wide variety of buildings and focusing on attacking one enemy out of 6.

[Galaxy]

Originally Posted by SkyDog

Oh...and it is nice that Future Tech actually *does* something finally.

What does it exactly do?

[Ben E Lou]

Originally Posted by Galaxy

What does it exactly do?

+1 happiness and +1 health in each city, I think.


Is there not a way to start a game on a random map type? I'd love to start a game not knowing if I'm on one continent, a bunch of islands, or what...

[Eilim]

Originally Posted by SkyDog

+1 happiness and +1 health in each city, I think.


Is there not a way to start a game on a random map type? I'd love to start a game not knowing if I'm on one continent, a bunch of islands, or what...

Your best bet for that from what I've read is to go with the tilted axis setting, then set everything else to random. The guy who designed the map scripts did a rather long write up on it, along with releasing a complete info packet on how all the maps work and what results you'll get. It's somewhere on Apolyton, I think its Sirian (or might be Sullla, always get them confused.) who wrote it all up.

[Ben E Lou]

Originally Posted by Eilim

Your best bet for that from what I've read is to go with the tilted axis setting, then set everything else to random. The guy who designed the map scripts did a rather long write up on it, along with releasing a complete info packet on how all the maps work and what results you'll get. It's somewhere on Apolyton, I think its Sirian (or might be Sullla, always get them confused.) who wrote it all up.

Can you give me a brief synopsis of what "tilted axis" is supposed to mean? I'll go over there and look it up now, too.

[Eilim]

===========
Tilted Axis
===========

Sideways Map: World Wrap top to bottom. Equator and poles run top to bottom, too
Square Map: 64 plots wide, 64 plots tall, at "Standard" map size

LANDMASS SIZE - Choose land mass sizes, from pangaea-like to tiny islands.

* "Random" - DEFAULT - Randomly picks one of the options.
* "Massive Continents" - Like Civ3's Pangaea. (That is, it's not ALWAYS one continent!)
* "Normal Continents" - Like Civ3's Continents.
* "Small Continents" - Like Civ3's Archipelago (or Civ4's on "Snaky Continents" setting)
* "Islands" - Like Civ4's Archipelago.
* "Tiny Islands" - Like Civ4's Archipelago (on "Tiny Islands" setting).

[Ben E Lou]

Originally Posted by Eilim

===========
Tilted Axis
===========

Sideways Map: World Wrap top to bottom. Equator and poles run top to bottom, too
Square Map: 64 plots wide, 64 plots tall, at "Standard" map size

LANDMASS SIZE - Choose land mass sizes, from pangaea-like to tiny islands.

* "Random" - DEFAULT - Randomly picks one of the options.
* "Massive Continents" - Like Civ3's Pangaea. (That is, it's not ALWAYS one continent!)
* "Normal Continents" - Like Civ3's Continents.
* "Small Continents" - Like Civ3's Archipelago (or Civ4's on "Snaky Continents" setting)
* "Islands" - Like Civ4's Archipelago.
* "Tiny Islands" - Like Civ4's Archipelago (on "Tiny Islands" setting).

Yeah...just found it. I might prefer "Islands"...

Islands

Global Map: World Wrap left to right
Oceanic Map: 84 plots wide, 52 plots tall, at "Standard" map size
Balanced Terrain: Each player starts with their own "large island", roughly equivalent
Coastal Start: All players guaranteed to start along the coast

NUMBER OF LARGE ISLANDS - Choose whether there will be minimum large islands, or extras.

• Random - Randomly picks one of the options.
• 1 Per Player - DEFAULT - Each player has their own large island. No extras.
• Extras - One or more "extra" islands. Players are put on the best islands, leaving the lowest quality "large" islands as uninhabited.
• Several Extras - More extras. (Still less than two large islands per player, though!)

NUMBER OF TINY ISLANDS - Tiny islands act as "water bridges" that open coastal-water pathways.

• Random - Randomly picks one of the options.
• No Tiny Islands - No extra tiny islands. Large islands will be isolated until Astronomy!
• Few Tiny Islands - Not many! Maybe some crossings from island to island, but unreliable.
• Various Tiny Islands DEFAULT - Enough tiny islands to ensure some early crossings.
• Many Tiny Islands - Plenty of crossings, almost like "Archipelago with Large Islands too".

[Ben E Lou]

Actually, on second thought, "tilted axis" sounds like I won't even know for sure whether or not I'm on the continent alone even. I'm not fired up about the sideways scroll, but I can probably adjust to that. Firing that sucker up now.

[Buccaneer]

We've passed the "FM 2006 First Impressions" thread. Great job!

[Passacaglia]

What? Those threads are mutually exclusive? You guys aren't going to make me choose or die, are you?

[Buccaneer]

I'm sitting here trying to figure out what to do in my game that I've put 20+ hours in. Except for the past 200 years where I laborously managed to capture 3 cities, I've played all over the board without a defineable strategy. Now I'm not sure what kind of victory I should go for. Domination and Conquest seem to be unattainable. Culture will run out time, I think. Maybe UN, don't know. Space could be a possibility but may not have enough production. But this is a lot better than Civ2 where either I would be so far ahead and winning would be a foregone conclusion, or so far behind and no way to catch up.

[jbmagic]

if you set the victory setting to conquest and domination only, will it make the AI more aggressive?

because it will force the AI civs to win that way only

[Ben E Lou]

Civ 4 Dynasty Thread

[Eilim]

Originally Posted by SkyDog

Civ 4 Dynasty Thread

Been waiting for someone to start one up.

[Eilim]

Originally Posted by jbmagic

if you set the victory setting to conquest and domination only, will it make the AI more aggressive?

because it will force the AI civs to win that way only

Possibly, but I bet a safer bet would be to just check the "aggressive AI" checkbox.

[ISiddiqui]

LOL!

Yeah, the custom options are good stuff .

[Galaxy]

What is "Global Warming" and its effect?

[Godzilla Blitz]

Originally Posted by SkyDog

Actually, on second thought, "tilted axis" sounds like I won't even know for sure whether or not I'm on the continent alone even. I'm not fired up about the sideways scroll, but I can probably adjust to that. Firing that sucker up now.

My first "noble" game was on a randomly generated "tilted axis" map. Was a fun game. Didn't even know what "tilted axis" meant until I ran into a north-south band of ice and snow. My map had oodles of small islands. Had I known that from the start I could have planned my tech advance at the beginning, but as it was I was forced to adjust on the fly. Makes things quite a bit more interesting.

[Eilim]

Ummm.. Think I'm going to have to toggle off "Raging Barbarians" when using the "Insane Barbarian" mod. Lets just say... umm, I think a picture would do better than words...







Umm, I have a feeling this will be a *very* short game.

[spleen1015]

Originally Posted by SkyDog

Civ 4 Dynasty Thread

Another great thing about Civ. It lets you turn the Americans into the French!!

[Ben E Lou]

Originally Posted by spleen1015

Another great thing about Civ. It lets you turn the Americans into the French!!

Yeah, yeah. Bite me.

[Toddzilla]

This post is a reply to SD's dynasty thread. I asked him if he took advantage of the jungle he was placed it by chopping down the trees for shields to speed production.

"I'm actually kind of surprised how much benefit comes from "The Chop". I usually expect to do a bit of wandering and such in the early game waiting for units to be built, but with the workers sending shields (not hammers, d'oh) back to your city every few turns it is nice to have more units available quickly, often in 1 or 2 turns.

What are the drawbacks to clear-cutting?"

(going to cross-post this in the main Civ4 thread)

[GrantDawg]

Originally Posted by Toddzilla

This post is a reply to SD's dynasty thread. I asked him if he took advantage of the jungle he was placed it by chopping down the trees for shields to speed production.

"I'm actually kind of surprised how much benefit comes from "The Chop". I usually expect to do a bit of wandering and such in the early game waiting for units to be built, but with the workers sending shields (not hammers, d'oh) back to your city every few turns it is nice to have more units available quickly, often in 1 or 2 turns.

What are the drawbacks to clear-cutting?"

(going to cross-post this in the main Civ4 thread)

A) Jungles don't give shields, only forests. Cutting down jungles that are close to your cities is a good idea because of disease, but it doesn't yield shields.

B) Later in the game, forest give increasing health bonuses, plus you can build lumberyards that produce shields. It is a real a long-term versus short term deal.

[Calis]

I've actually recently switched from the strategy of cutting down everything in site, to one of keeping everything I possibly can. If you have lots of forest/jungle and you hit Environmentalism, you're going to have one super happy Civ.

Lumbermills are also pretty useful. They can be useful for slowing down invasions as well.

I haven't played enough to say for sure yet, but I don't think you're at a real disadvantage going the preservation route, you just peak later.

[spleen1015]

After about 40 games or so, I just had my first "Now that was just dumb!" moment with this game.

I am playing on an Inland Sea map and I am near the NW corner of the map. Scouting around, I see a goodie hut in the very corner. I grab it for a map reveal and it reveals nothing!

Why? I assume because I found it coming from the SE, I had already revealed all of the terrain around it. So, it must have 'tried' to reveal NW of its location.

Stupid!

[Ksyrup]

Someone created a mod over at Apolyton that allows you to build a "Tree Nursery" later in the game, so that you can cut down forests in the early game and then reforest again later:

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthrea...hreadid=142723

For those who didn't follow it's development: It's a tiny mod which, upon discovering the Guilds tech, allows your workers to build a "Tree Nursery" improvement. When you work the tile with this improvement for ~25 turns (like the Cottage), it will disappear and leave behind a forest tile.

Changes:
- Changed the "english for runaways" translation "Tree School" into "Tree Nursery"
- Changed the icon for the "Build Tree Nursery" job to a picture of a forest.
- Did a cleanup and a rename on the files in the TXT directory to reduce filesize and make it easier for people to use this modification along with others.



The file is in the linked thread.

[Ksyrup]

Oh, and this was mentioned as well:

"Firaxis stated that forgetting the options to leave trees alone is a oversight and it should be in the next patch."

So, there will be a button added which will automate workers but not allow them to chop down trees.

[vex]

Trying to play Tilted Axis for the first time, I've CTDed twice in a row now, after starting up two different games. This map was just not meant to be for me.

[Eaglesfan27]

Originally Posted by Ksyrup

Oh, and this was mentioned as well:

"Firaxis stated that forgetting the options to leave trees alone is a oversight and it should be in the next patch."

So, there will be a button added which will automate workers but not allow them to chop down trees.

That will be much appreciated. It is the main reason that I no longer automate workers.

[Buccaneer]

Here was one of those choices I had to think about. In my goal to wipe out the Mongols, I have reached the southwest end of the continent where I had just taken their last large city (Old Sarai) and have one small one left. I had no intention of keeping Old Sarai since it is so far from my capital and doesn't appear to be any valuable resources around at this time (I control the upper 2/3 of the continent) but seeing that not capturing it would leave a vacuum for the Germans (light gray to the east) to easily fill.

Here's a screen shot http://home.adelphia.net/~ouray2/images/civ4-1.jpg

I've been at peace (and at the Pleased level) since the beginning of the game with the Germans. They have never threatened me and did not fight the Mongols even though we agreed on that. But I did not want them to take any more territory since it my goal now, I think, to culturally take the continent. I also will be able to upgrade my Musks to Riflemen in the near future so it'll be either roll over and play dead or be rolled over and get dead.

[Buccaneer]

Another anecdote about the map. I started the Mongols War by taking Beshbalik and Karakorum (you can see the 9 in the upper right corner) but then I started encountering the dreaded Keshik units in and around Karakorum and esp. moving closer to Turfan. I knew I needed about 12 Musks and 3 Catapults to take Turfan so it would take some time to gather the forces. But one of the first things I did was to destory that Horse Ranch near Turfan. A no-brainer decision but it did prove critical to the success of moving through and taking out the remaining Mongols territory, as well as to not having to worry about sneak attacks and pillagings in my territory as the Keshiks were apt to do.

[moriarty]

Originally Posted by Buccaneer

Here was one of those choices I had to think about. In my goal to wipe out the Mongols, I have reached the southwest end of the continent where I had just taken their last large city (Old Sarai) and have one small one left. I had no intention of keeping Old Sarai since it is so far from my capital and doesn't appear to be any valuable resources around at this time (I control the upper 2/3 of the continent) but seeing that not capturing it would leave a vacuum for the Germans (light gray to the east) to easily fill.

Here's a screen shot http://home.adelphia.net/~ouray2/images/civ4-1.jpg

I've been at peace (and at the Pleased level) since the beginning of the game with the Germans. They have never threatened me and did not fight the Mongols even though we agreed on that. But I did not want them to take any more territory since it my goal now, I think, to culturally take the continent. I also will be able to upgrade my Musks to Riflemen in the near future so it'll be either roll over and play dead or be rolled over and get dead.

You could always have a settler handy, sack Sarai and build a city same turn in one of the new culture free zones w/ better resources (not sure if there's a better square nearby based on the pic) to avoid a German land grab. Then use your great artist to culture bomb.

You'd still be too far from your capital though unless you moved the capital to a closer city. I'd keep Sarai though if it was me, assuming you can absorb the maintenance hit (build a courthouse quickly).

[Buccaneer]

I have read quite a bit about "maintenance hit" and how that is critical, esp. in the early game. Fortunately, at the level I'm playing, I got 200+ gold very early from goodie huts and and with 10% taxes, I never had to worry about running out. I realize this becomes more critical on the harder levels.

moriaty: There were a worker and a settler in Sarai when I attacked it, I was hoping that I would get them but instead, I got 2 workers. Didn't think about having a settler trailing since I had been in wartime production since I needed 25-30 Musks and 8 Catapults in total (plus a bunch of Missionaries).

[Daimyo]

I'd keep it. There are several resources that could appear there later (oil and aluminum mainly) that its worth the upkeep IMO to hold onto the land. A city with 7 pop will pretty easily pay for its own upkeep quickly anyway in my experience no matter how far away it is.

[jbmagic]

what the biggest city size you took down and destroy?

[Passacaglia]

Playing as Gandhi. I have to say Theocracy rules -- especially if you're spiritual and have no anarchy. I'd been playing my typical style, with absolutely no regard for military unless it's absolutely necessary. Right after I converted to Hinduism, the Japanese declared war on me -- odd, since they were also Hindu (maybe they thought I was bastardizing it? Screw them, I founded it!)

Anyway, I changed to theocracy, and since I had the Pyramids, I was able to also change to a police state. Units started getting built like mad!

[Eaglesfan27]

I sure hope a reboot fixes this...

I just finished doing some errands. I put the Civ4 CD in my computer and hit play. The game starts to initialize, but just as it gets to the Take Two logo, it drops to desktop and it is as if I never started the Civ4 program! I tried this three times in both of my drives with the same result every time.

Anyone else have this happen? Wierd that it should just start now. Anyway, hopefully the reboot I'm about to do will fix the problem..



Edit: Whatever the problem was, a reboot fixed it.

[henry296]

Time for a quick story. I started a new game on Noble with 4 other civs. I thought I had a good start with some floodplains and was able to get Stonehenge pretty easily since I had stone. That was my first priority. I did run into problems with barbarians winning a couple of dice rolls vs. my archers guarding my early cities which forced me to build my 3rd city 3 times. Once I got established, I was able to wipe out the barbarian city to my south. However, I was only able to get 5 cities built.

Even though I had 3 holy cities, I was unable to capitalize on it. I ended up with no iron and unfortunately tried to go to war to get it. I declared war on the Incas, and was able to take 2 cities. However, when I went after the city with iron, he showed up with Knights. My War Chariots and Horse Archers were no match. During that war the French who were to my North also declared war. I don't if it was diplomatic request from the Incas, or they just didn't like me. I had declined tribute a couple of times. They rolled in with at 10 Knight and took my capital and wiped me out.

Some quick lessons:

1. Be careful of barbarians.
2. Iron is important
3. Diplomacy is important and cultivating some allies to trade techs.

[Buccaneer]

I thought this is a fairly cool screen shot

http://home.adelphia.net/~ouray2/images/civ4-2.jpg

I finished off the Mongols and then the Germans, with their 5 large cities, were next. I had something like +14 in friendly relations but I want the continent to myself. I simply amassed Riflemen, Knights and Catapults on the border and then ended our Open Borders agreement. I know this is at the Chieftain level but I am hoping that at higher levels, they would have known something was up when 1) I methodically took out the Mongols, 2) they were the only civ left on my continent and 3) they saw my hordes of troops on our borders.