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

[Daimyo]

Originally Posted by Ksyrup

One thing I couldn't remember from CivIII about trading resources...on the trade screen, when it shows your resources to trade and has a number to the right - is that the number you have to trade, or the total number you have? In other words, If I see:

stone (1)
gems (3)

Do I have 1 stone to trade, or is that my only stone, and if I trade it, I won't have any? I couldn't remember how this worked while I was playing, so I just worked around it.

In Civ3 I think it only let you trade your surplus resources. Now it lets you trade all of them. If it says stone(1) and you trade it away, you know longer have access to stone until you cancel the deal. That bit me once in one of my first games.

[vex]

Originally Posted by Daimyo

In Civ3 I think it only let you trade your surplus resources. Now it lets you trade all of them. If it says stone(1) and you trade it away, you know longer have access to stone until you cancel the deal. That bit me once in one of my first games.

Really? I guess that explains me not being able to make modern armor last night

[Celeval]

Originally Posted by Daimyo

In Civ3 I think it only let you trade your surplus resources. Now it lets you trade all of them. If it says stone(1) and you trade it away, you know longer have access to stone until you cancel the deal. That bit me once in one of my first games.

Another twist that got me - I had Spices (1) in my list, and didn't want to trade it because I thought it was my only source... until I realized that back before I took over that Spices item, I had traded for it, and that was still in effect. Ended up trading out the local spices to Elizabeth, while importing them from Catherine. :-D

[gstelmack]

Anyone else wish there was a "search" button in the Civilopedia? Tried to use it last night to find out what good "Moses" did me, and ended up having to mess around with the game to figure it out.

[Ksyrup]

Originally Posted by Daimyo

In Civ3 I think it only let you trade your surplus resources. Now it lets you trade all of them. If it says stone(1) and you trade it away, you know longer have access to stone until you cancel the deal. That bit me once in one of my first games.

Thanks. I played it that way to be safe. Glad I did.

[Eaglesfan27]

Originally Posted by Butter_of_69

The AI is very crafty...

I ended up on a continent with 2 other civs, and peacefully co-existed for a long time, making sure to build cities on either border, so as to squeeze them as best I could, while using culture to overtake the rest of the continent's land.... I kept my borders fairly well defended, and they eventually declared war on me. I was the Indians, they're Greek. They send a nice little squad over, but I beat them back with multiple cavalry, and actually take 2 smaller cities that they'd built along the North Coast. Then they come back and take one of the 2 North Coast cities with riflemen (before I'd acquired rifling -- I withdrew rather than take a stand with 5 macemen and a couple of cavalry against something like 9 riflemen), and instead of re-taking it, they just raze it. I am able to defend my other newly acquire cities, and my 2 other border cities with the Greeks with something like 12 units per city.

I keep building units and start sending them into Greek territory just to create havoc (because I'm still on the road to something better than rifling). The cavalry are doing a nice job of destroying improvements and creating chaos in Greek territory, but then a funny thing happens. The Greeks land an army of 5 cavalry on my southwest shore, attacking a city with just 1 cavalry and 3 macemen for defense, and take it immediately. Then, they get the French to attack my southeast coastal city, and take out it's cavalry, 2 longbowman and axeman pretty easily. At that point, I'm trying to spread defenses among all my cities, and am forced to pretty much concede as I go from 11 cities to 7 in about 10 turns, as my inner cities are all poorly defended and I don't have the tech to rush build anything. A nice, thorough beating on Noble that I didn't see coming. Impressive.

I'm still having trouble getting any consistency with creating Great People... any secrets to share involving churning them out?

I've had similar experiences as well. The AI even on noble pulls off some impressive tactics that have caught me unaware. In my aforementioned posts, the Aztecs attacked me from 3 sides when they started the first war and razed two towns that I thought were out of harms way because they were on the far northern edge of the continent. Guess I should have seen the amphibious assault coming

[Eilim]

Originally Posted by Daimyo

DOLA, I think part of my problem is I keep playing Huge, 17 civ games... I don't think I've won one of those yet... with that many civs the diplomacy seems almost impossible to manage.

I've actually had better luck diplomacy wise with alot more civs. I think this is because your more likely to get religous "blocks" with that many civs. With early/mid game relations being so religion dependent I find it easier to navigate the power blocks than sometimes having to deal with each nation having it own religion and thereby hitting you with a -4 or more to relations until you hit free religion.


My succesful way of combating this so far in smaller games is to avoid founding religions, or even if founding them, not making them my state religion. I basicly wait on going with a state religion until I decide who I wish to ally with and going with their religion.

I've found the gold benefit can be offset with creating a specialized commercial city, plus I don't have to focus so much on creating missionaries as I let the AI and trade routes do it for me.

Another side benefit on a variant of this strategy goes well with me not liking to share space early on. If I do happen to found an early religion (which I don't use as a state religion.) through my regular progression of the tech tree, it tends to be picked up by my neighbor through trade and my freebee missionary allowing me justification for an early attack while usually not upsetting an civs I might hope to ally with later. As almost all early civ alignments are based on religion, by forcing a religion on him which no one else yet supports I am less likely to face any repurcussions for the war.

Hmm, sorry for the babbling.. Not sure if that makes much sense reading through it now, but it did when I was thinking it out, and putting it to use in game.

[Daimyo]

I've kind of wondered about religion. I generally try to found them for the cash, but I've often considered changing to a non-founded religion just for diplomacy. I'm starting to think that unless you're spiritual or philosophical its probably better to just ignore religion and choose purely based on diplomacy.

[Daimyo]

DOLA, also it feels like if you do decide to go the religion route you really need to go all out and try to discover all of them. Few things worse than carefully building up two same-religion allies with missionaries and gifts only to have one get christianity and the other taoism and suddenly finding yourself all alone with two new enemies....

[moriarty]

Originally Posted by Daimyo

DOLA, also it feels like if you do decide to go the religion route you really need to go all out and try to discover all of them. Few things worse than carefully building up two same-religion allies with missionaries and gifts only to have one get christianity and the other taoism and suddenly finding yourself all alone with two new enemies....

Not necessarily, but if you commit to a religion you'll likely need two things - open borders, and lots of missionaries. Usually I stockpile 5-6 missionaries, turn on open borders with a potential ally, and try to actively convert as many cities as possible. Of course he can do the same to you, which is why I have 5-6 ready to go prior to opening borders.

Put enough religious pressure on your neighbors and they will see the light.

[Daimyo]

I haven't had much luck getting civs to convert to my religion and stay there if they founded their own. For non-religion founders it seems as long as more cities have your religion than other religions and they like you enough they've convert. For religion founders, even when my religion is in more of their cities then their religion they still always convert back to their's..

[moriarty]

Originally Posted by Daimyo

I haven't had much luck getting civs to convert to my religion and stay there if they founded their own. For non-religion founders it seems as long as more cities have your religion than other religions and they like you enough they've convert. For religion founders, even when my religion is in more of their cities then their religion they still always convert back to their's..

I wasn't talking about necessarily converting them, but if I have my religion growing in most/all of their cities, my diplomatic relations with that civ seem to be really strong.

[henry296]

Originally Posted by Daimyo

I've kind of wondered about religion. I generally try to found them for the cash, but I've often considered changing to a non-founded religion just for diplomacy. I'm starting to think that unless you're spiritual or philosophical its probably better to just ignore religion and choose purely based on diplomacy.

In my current game, I found that to work very well. I founded Hinduism but was unable to spread it very well. Once Frederick asked me to convert to Judiasm I did and since there were a couple of other Jewish civs, I was quickly able to get pleased relations and was able to very easily trade techs with them, which was always difficult if we were different religions.

[henry296]

Originally Posted by Honolulu_Blue

Quick question, once you get the advancement that allows you to finish building things by spending gold (forgot the name of it), how do you use that ability? I got it in a game last night, but couldn't figure out how to spend all the gold I had stock piled.

You need to convert to Universal Suffrage as your government type.

[Honolulu_Blue]

Originally Posted by henry296

You need to convert to Universal Suffrage as your government type.

I did convert to Universal Suffrage. I just couldn't seem to locate the "button" or command to allow me to use the rush-buy. That's what I am looking for.

[Vince]

HB -- On the city screen, at the bottom center is the little window that has what you can choose to build in it. Just to the right of that is a bunch of tiny buttons that allow you to automate the city to emphasize production, food or commerce. Right above those buttons are two buttons, one to rush production by sacrificing people, the other to rush production by sacrificing gold.

[Honolulu_Blue]

Originally Posted by Vince

HB -- On the city screen, at the bottom center is the little window that has what you can choose to build in it. Just to the right of that is a bunch of tiny buttons that allow you to automate the city to emphasize production, food or commerce. Right above those buttons are two buttons, one to rush production by sacrificing people, the other to rush production by sacrificing gold.

Excellent. Thanks!

[Vince]

Any time!

Anyone here know how to set up the SMTP thing for a play-by-e-mail game?

[GrantDawg]

I got through playing a large terran map on epic last night. I was surprised that epic didn't slow things down as much as I thought. I played the Chinese, and ended up dead center in the main continent surrounded by Peter, Cyrus, Asoka, the Arabs and the Japanese. I quickly hit Hinduism and Judaism in my first two cities. The Japanese stayed angry at me, even though they quickly became Jewish (which was my chosen religion). Peter and Cyrus stayed my friends throughout even though they hated each other. The real challenge came from Spain, who by far had the largest land mass and city numbers in the old world. Isabella and I traded the lead the whole game, and she constantly threatened me throughout. I tried to keep a strong army, with at least one city of my core 5 always producing a unit, plus I sent lots of missionaries to the other civs (all except for Isabella who either always had either closed borders with me, or was in Theocracy so I couldn't convert her cities).

Late in the game, Isabella took a small lead by pushing the other civs to stop trading with me (all except Peter, Cyrus and Washington). I had a defensive pact with Cyrus and Washington (Peter would never enter a pact with me, and Washington was a minor player looking for any protection). Japan then kept threatening me, making demands and building on the border. I also saw Isabella had built a huge number of cities including dotting little islands, so I began to worry she was going to win a population victory. So, I attacked the Japanese while I had a tech advantage (his best units were Horse Archers, versus my calvary and riflemen). I beat on him pretty easily, but about the time I had a strong commitment up there, Isabella proclaimed war.

She came in through the Arab land with a huge stack of units. I thought I was dead. My friends all refused to go to war with her (and my defense pacts went down when I attacked Japan). That is when i discovered how powerfull the Chinese special units are. They replace crossbowmen, have 1-2 first strikes on outset, and they do collateral damage! These units had no chance of killing the stronger Spainish units (Muskets, Elephant units, and calvary), but they did damage to the whole stack of 8 units. They slowed their advance enough for me to build several calvary units to harry the advance, and split them to smaller groups that were fought off.

The second I could, I sued for peace with Isabella (I think I had to giver her a tech), finished off Japan, and began rebuilding a stronger defense. Once I built tanks, I crossed the sea and attacked the three huge cites in the northern continent of the new world, and quickly took the lead again. Then Peter made his victory play by building Space Station units. I immediately put my largest cities to building, with one building the Space Elevator. Luckily, Peter was still one tech from beignn able to compete all units, which allowed me to catch up. I won the space race victory in the 1980's.

I think next time I play China, I am going to aggresive the second I get their special units. I bet you can take cities pretty easily with them and a couple of catapults to tear down defenses.

[Honolulu Blue]

This is HB #2 speaking.

It took me awhile to get into this game, but I'm glad I did. I finally won one - Noble level, duel map, 2 opponents (Mao & Peter), custom continents (4). I played as Mali. I got a continent to myself and placed the 9 or so cities that would be the backbone of my empire. I found I could crank out the techs and Great People like no tomorrow, so I slowly pressed that advantage. My opponents never liked me very much and I got into an early skirmish with Mao. After taking one of his cities and razing two others, a peace treaty was signed. Around 1850, I found my tech lead was so overwhelming that I figured I could roll through my opponents. And, eventually, I did. More for my benefit than yours, here's how I did it (combined arms, baby!):

1) Use my battleships & destroyers to take out the defenses and knock out any stray ships (they were still using galleons & frigates, poor guys).
2) Use my bombers to shell their defense some more, or cause damage to their units.
3) Send in the troops - at first I used infantry & marines. I wasn't impressed. Later I used tanks and modern armor, with better results.
4) Repeat.

I kept most of the cities (for a domination victory, you almost have to) and noticed I had a happiness problem. So I did three things for that - (1) went to Police State, (2) moved culture up to 20% (YMMV), and (3) built theatres & temples as soon as I could in my captured cities.

This led me to victory in 1966. Impressive game. I'll have to try again, with the difficulty cranked up and other things a little different.

[Dunleavy]

let me ask you guys something slightly OT, but what kind of specs are you playing the game with (video cards etc...) and how well has the performence been

[Mr. Wednesday]

AMD Athlon XP processor running at 2.2 GHz (corresponding to roughly 3200+, I think -- it's a 2500 mobile overclocked from 1.8 to 2.2)
RADEON 9800 Pro vidcard
512 MB of RAM

I've played the tutorial and one full normal game. The tutorial bogged in the first session I played, although it seemed OK when I came back to finish it. The normal game, I was forced by circumstances to save it at an earlier point and come back to it, and I never noticed any perf. issues. A recent tilted axis game gave me a CTD relatively early on.

[Ksyrup]

I just bought a computer with the following specs and haven't had a single issue:

Pentium D 830 with Dual Core Technology, 3 GHz, 800FSB
2GB Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 533MHz
256MB PCI Express x16 ATI Radeon X600 X600 SE HyperMemory

[Radii]

I have a P4 2.4 GhZ machine with 512 MB RAM. I have an ATI Radeon xxxx video card(I forget the number) w/ 64 MB RAM, it was about $70, nothign special.

I have not yet had a single crash.

I have an interesting issue though. I have a dual monitor setup. When I run civ4 it opens in the main monitor obviously. When I exit the program normally my main monitor goes black and I have to reboot. BUT, if I put a program on my other monitor, to exit the game I can click on that other program, civ4 minimizes and I can kill it in task manager and I never have monitor issues. Fun, huh? But worth it for this game.

[Honolulu_Blue]

Pentium 4 66o, 3.6 GHz, 2MB cache
1GB DDR2 SDRAM at 533MHz
256MB Nvidia GeForce 6800 GTO Graphics Card

I haven't had any serious problems. Every once in a while the game slows down to crawl. This usually happens after I go to one of the "advisor" screens and come back. Sometimes things pick up. If they don't, I save, exit, and re-start the game and everything is back at normal speed, which is smooth and nice.

[Daimyo]

Athlon 64 X2 3800+
1GB RAM
256 MB ATI x800 Pro PCI-X

Haven't had a bit of trouble...

[Buccaneer]

I'm right at recommended: Athlon 1.8Ghz, 512mb ram, 128mb geforce4 card. I have had very little trouble - nearly flawless. All weekend long, I would keep the game running and when I want to do something else, I would minimize it. I would open up IE, Photoshop and even FBCB, then go back to Civ4. After about 6-8 hours though, it would get sluggish. A simple reboot gets the performance back. This is playing on a standard map.

[oykib]

Anyone else still having the CTD when loading an old save problem?

[Ksyrup]

I need some quick help. I'm at the end of a game I'm winning easily, so I figured I would try out my impressive military. Well, I can't figure out how to use my air units at all. I can send them on recon missions, but when I try to bomb or strike, nothing happens. I click on the unit, select bomb/strike, get the little picture, and have tried either right or left clicking to start the unit on its mission, but I get nothing. What am I doing wrong? I assume it's something stupid that I'm missing.

[henry296]

Originally Posted by Ksyrup

I need some quick help. I'm at the end of a game I'm winning easily, so I figured I would try out my impressive military. Well, I can't figure out how to use my air units at all. I can send them on recon missions, but when I try to bomb or strike, nothing happens. I click on the unit, select bomb/strike, get the little picture, and have tried either right or left clicking to start the unit on its mission, but I get nothing. What am I doing wrong? I assume it's something stupid that I'm missing.

You need to left click on the tile you want to bomb or strike. It needs to be within 8 tiles. You can't attack after you re-base the plane.

[Mr. Wednesday]

The tiles within range should have the white bracket overlaid on them too.

[Ksyrup]

Actually, I figured out the problem. I guess I can't declare war with an air unit. All I had to do was move another type of unit into their territory, declare war, then I was able to attack with air units. Thanks.

[Mr. Wednesday]

You don't need any unit to declare war, you can do it from the diplomacy screen. Dial them up, announce your intention to redecorate their former territory (having heard that heads on pikes are the latest in lawn ornaments), and go nuts.

[Ksyrup]

OK, so I'm a little confused about how the game "ends." Basically, this was my first full game, playing chieftain with Spain on a highlands map. I'm like 1500 points ahead of everyone else, but I'm not going to win a culture war, the UN victory is pretty boring, and I don't have near the land or population I need for a domination victory.

So in 2014, I decide to pay back the French for years of generally being an ass to me. I played the entire game war-free, except for when the French attacked me out of the blue several hundred years earlier. They were always annoyed with me, and because of our close borders and the fact that they were second to me in the game, I guess they decided to continually fuck with me. I was woefully unprepared militarily when they attacked, but still managed to hold my own - I lost a crappy, just-built city right near their border before I sued for peace.

So it's 2014, I'm bored, and I've now got a fleet of modern armor, mechanized infantry, and stealth bombers just sitting around doing nothing. So I attack the French. Between 2014 and 2048, I manage to completely destroy a pretty big country. They were sandwiched between me on the right (a huge, rectangular country) and England on the left, in a vertical, somewhat skinny shape. So I went straight for the middle, split the country in two, and kicked the crap out of them for 30 years. By the time I completely wipe them out, I've now got 43.71% of the world's population - which I thought triggers a domination victory. But nothing happened. I didn't even get notice that I "won" in 2050 with the most points. I thought that's how the game ends? Am I wrong?

[oykib]

Originally Posted by Ksyrup

OK, so I'm a little confused about how the game "ends." Basically, this was my first full game, playing chieftain with Spain on a highlands map. I'm like 1500 points ahead of everyone else, but I'm not going to win a culture war, the UN victory is pretty boring, and I don't have near the land or population I need for a domination victory.

So in 2014, I decide to pay back the French for years of generally being an ass to me. I played the entire game war-free, except for when the French attacked me out of the blue several hundred years earlier. They were always annoyed with me, and because of our close borders and the fact that they were second to me in the game, I guess they decided to continually fuck with me. I was woefully unprepared militarily when they attacked, but still managed to hold my own - I lost a crappy, just-built city right near their border before I sued for peace.

So it's 2014, I'm bored, and I've now got a fleet of modern armor, mechanized infantry, and stealth bombers just sitting around doing nothing. So I attack the French. Between 2014 and 2048, I manage to completely destroy a pretty big country. They were sandwiched between me on the right (a huge, rectangular country) and England on the left, in a vertical, somewhat skinny shape. So I went straight for the middle, split the country in two, and kicked the crap out of them for 30 years. By the time I completely wipe them out, I've now got 43.71% of the world's population - which I thought triggers a domination victory. But nothing happened. I didn't even get notice that I "won" in 2050 with the most points. I thought that's how the game ends? Am I wrong?

You need 2/3 or so of the inhabited land mass and 25% more population than anyone else.

[Honolulu_Blue]

Originally Posted by Ksyrup

OK, so I'm a little confused about how the game "ends." Basically, this was my first full game, playing chieftain with Spain on a highlands map. I'm like 1500 points ahead of everyone else, but I'm not going to win a culture war, the UN victory is pretty boring, and I don't have near the land or population I need for a domination victory.

So in 2014, I decide to pay back the French for years of generally being an ass to me. I played the entire game war-free, except for when the French attacked me out of the blue several hundred years earlier. They were always annoyed with me, and because of our close borders and the fact that they were second to me in the game, I guess they decided to continually fuck with me. I was woefully unprepared militarily when they attacked, but still managed to hold my own - I lost a crappy, just-built city right near their border before I sued for peace.

So it's 2014, I'm bored, and I've now got a fleet of modern armor, mechanized infantry, and stealth bombers just sitting around doing nothing. So I attack the French. Between 2014 and 2048, I manage to completely destroy a pretty big country. They were sandwiched between me on the right (a huge, rectangular country) and England on the left, in a vertical, somewhat skinny shape. So I went straight for the middle, split the country in two, and kicked the crap out of them for 30 years. By the time I completely wipe them out, I've now got 43.71% of the world's population - which I thought triggers a domination victory. But nothing happened. I didn't even get notice that I "won" in 2050 with the most points. I thought that's how the game ends? Am I wrong?

You should be able to check your exact status with respect to victory conditions on the "victory conditions" screen. I think it's F8 or something. It will tell you just what percentage of everything you have .

[Ksyrup]

Originally Posted by Honolulu_Blue

You should be able to check your exact status with respect to victory conditions on the "victory conditions" screen. I think it's F8 or something. It will tell you just what percentage of everything you have .

Yes, I did that. It shows the population victory condition as being 43%, and I had 43.71%.

[Ksyrup]

Originally Posted by oykib

You need 2/3 or so of the inhabited land mass and 25% more population than anyone else.

Ah, maybe this is where I failed. I had the 43%, but I think Egypt might have been closer than 18%. All I know is, the victory conditions screen shows 43% needed, and I achieved that.

[Toddzilla]

Originally Posted by Ksyrup

Ah, maybe this is where I failed. I had the 43%, but I think Egypt might have been closer than 18%. All I know is, the victory conditions screen shows 43% needed, and I achieved that.

I believe you need BOTH the population AND the land mass in order to trigger that victory...?

[Ksyrup]

That might be. Maybe I read it as "or." I leave my "fine print/reading comprehension" glasses at work.

[KWhit]

No, you need to have both requirements.

[Ksyrup]

Well shit. Next game, I'm launching my assault in the 1800s and laying waste to all the bastards.

[Honolulu_Blue]

Originally Posted by Ksyrup

Well shit. Next game, I'm launching my assault in the 1800s and laying waste to all the bastards.

Now that's what I'm talkin' about!

[Ben E Lou]

KSyrup, way to strap on a pair.



ALL, patch is on the way.

Quote:

Hello everyone!

I`ve heard from many of you via the Firaxis website Contact Us form (many thanks for all the dxdiag files and savegames) and wanted to say thanks for all the feedback and detailed bug reports that were sent up.

I just wanted to let everyone know that as of [this] Monday afternoon, the patch was sent to [publisher] 2K [Games] for final testing, so barring any problems in Q[uality] A[ssurance], we will be releasing it shortly.

Some of the highlights include multiple A[rtificial] I[ntelligence] improvements and tweaks, worker behavior tweaks, MANY game play improvements (ex Animal Husbandry reveals horses), promotion tweaks, a softer pillage sound (requested by many, many people), fixed diplomatic exploits (gold for gold, peace treaty exploit), multiplayer tweaks (Hot seat, Lobby, etc.), memory, caching and performance improvements, etc. There were also a number of video card specific fixes.

To those of you having problems, thanks for your patience. Our guys were working around the clock with your detailed feedback to produce this patch. For those of you having no problems, it`s only going to get better.

Dennis Shirk
Firaxis Games

Link: http://civilization4.net/

[duckman]

Sweeeet!

[vex]

"a softer pillage sound (requested by many, many people)"

Say what?

[CraigSca]

Just and FYI, gogamer.com currently has Civ 4 priced at $34.97, but I think it's only for the next 48 hours...

[Yossarian]

"a softer pillage sound (requested by many, many people)"

When you have 7 or 8 enemy units in your turf (not that a fantastic commander such as I is ever in that position I must add) then when your turn starts, the shriek of 'pillage screams' gets bloody annoying.

[Ben E Lou]

Update on my crash to desktop issues....odd fix, but this appears to have worked.

I increased my resolution to 1280x960, and it seems that the problem is fixed. Go figger.

[moriarty]

OK, 16 pages into this thread and I just realized you could hit Ctrl-Tab to bring up all the messages you may have missed when they flash in the game. Dote.