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

[Ksyrup]

Originally Posted by 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.

Uh...put me in the group of people who didn't know that. I tried reading through all the hints on that one screen, but it got tedious. I guess I missed this one. Thanks!

[spleen1015]

Originally Posted by 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.

I didn't know this either. Man!

[Butter]

Is it even possible to have a border with someone on Noble and them not want to fight you? I can't seem to do it through 4 tries... and the wars always drag out and I always end up falling behind the culture/tech race, and lose later on after the war ends in a stalemate, borders unchanged.

I'm thinking Noble might just be a bit too hard for me. Maybe I just suck.

[moriarty]

Originally Posted by Butter_of_69

Is it even possible to have a border with someone on Noble and them not want to fight you? I can't seem to do it through 4 tries... and the wars always drag out and I always end up falling behind the culture/tech race, and lose later on after the war ends in a stalemate, borders unchanged.

I'm thinking Noble might just be a bit too hard for me. Maybe I just suck.

I should say I too suck at Noble (my highest rating is like Elrod the unworthy or something like that). Having said that, I shared an island with the English and managed to co-exist the entire game without a war. I think it helps if a) the person you share a border with isn't aggressive, and b) you either convert them to your religion or adopt theirs.

If someone like Napoleon is at your borders, you might as well prepare for war.

[Ksyrup]

I suck and Noble is too much for me - I'll admit it. What's the level right below it? I'm trying that one right now.

Funny enough, I just happened to read these comments on the CIV fanatics board:

Originally Posted by MaXXXXXuM
Now on to my biggest peeve, the gameplay. In past Civs, mostly Civ 3, I loved what the AI stood for, I loved how it acted. Even on warlord mode, If i was sitting on the only Iron resource, and a Civ needed it, you could be damn well sure that he would declare war on me to get it. What I've seen so far in Civ 4 leads me to believe nothing like this exsists yet. I've actually put the AI's on aggressive, sat there and watched the other Civs do absolutely nothing but expand their cities in a mundane fashion.

Yup. That's exactly my impression of the AI as well (thus far). After the initial expansion is over, the AI appears to have very little interest in further territorial aggrandizement. They simply sit there building. They play with a lot less brio than their counterparts in Civ III. You can, literally, go several thousand years w/o a single war -- which is almost unheard of in Civ III, in addition to being totally unrepresentative of real history.

Take my last game: the only border that changed, after initial expansion, and not counting culture, was the Japanese and mine. I declared war and eliminated the Japanese.

I'm not asking for constant warfare, by any means, but I sorely miss the excitment provided by aggressive civs -- or, rather, the mixture of aggressive/passive/somewhere-in-between civs.

[WSUCougar]

Me too, Ksyrup.

[Daimyo]

What difficulty and types of maps? I mostly play on the continent maps where lots of civs are together (terra, continents, etc) on Prince and there are always wars. There isn't as much fluidity in alliances as in real life though... it always seems like there is one civ singled out as being hated that gets ganged up on constantly throughout the game.

[Daimyo]

DOLA, I would agree that so far it doesn't appear the AI fights very strategically though. I see them constantly razing cities... in one game I bordered England and they were the most hated. The other civs razed almost all their cities and created a nice vacuum I was able to expand into. One city had 7 dye squares surrounding it and they didn't even keep that one...

[Ksyrup]

I've seen the ganging up thing, too. In the one game I played to completion, on the same turn 5 civs came to me and asked me to cancel my agreements with the Aztecs. The Aztecs were constantly the hated group throughout that game.

[Toddzilla]

Originally Posted by Ksyrup

I'm not asking for constant warfare, by any means, but I sorely miss the excitment provided by aggressive civs -- or, rather, the mixture of aggressive/passive/somewhere-in-between civs.

I don't know what settings you guys are using, but I've played 5-6 games and I see plenty of warfare, between other civs and with me as well. I haven't played a single game without 3-4 wars mixed in at the very least. What kind of Civs are you getting matched up with? I seem to get the Japanese, Mongols, Germans, Aztec, and Incas every time, so it's quite volatile

EDIT: I'm using the default out-of-the-box settings BTW

[Honolulu_Blue]

Originally Posted by Ksyrup

I've seen the ganging up thing, too. In the one game I played to completion, on the same turn 5 civs came to me and asked me to cancel my agreements with the Aztecs. The Aztecs were constantly the hated group throughout that game.

I don't blame them. I f*cking hate the Aztecs. They are incredibly aggressive. They deserve all the pain they get.

[Ksyrup]

That quote is from the civ fanatics board. I've got all I can handle with this game, raging wars or not.

[Honolulu_Blue]

Originally Posted by Ksyrup

That quote is from the civ fanatics board. I've got all I can handle with this game, raging wars or not.

Me too. I have played 4 games. Two ended quickly and badly. I played the other two through to the end. I was certainly a world power, but lost both games to the Space Race. My scores, however, ranked me at Dan Quayle and the loser right above Dan Quayle. Nothing higher. It's shameful.

[WSUCougar]

Originally Posted by Honolulu_Blue

I don't blame them. I f*cking hate the Aztecs. They are incredibly aggressive. They deserve all the pain they get.

My first full game as the Aztecs has gone quite well. I like to watch my jaguar special units bashing enemies with their clubs.

[Butter]

Originally Posted by Honolulu_Blue

I don't blame them. I f*cking hate the Aztecs. They are incredibly aggressive. They deserve all the pain they get.

Indeed. I start attacking them as soon as I can any time I'm neighbors with them now, rather than delaying the inevitable attack from them.

[jbmagic]

anybody try playing teams?

ai and human vs ai and ai?

[Daimyo]

I liked the Aztecs the one game I was randomly assigned to them. Their special unit is pretty awesome early game and aggressive is really a huge trait if you plan to fight a lot.

[Buccaneer]

I am close to completing my first game on Chieftain (50+ hours gamelog, 30+ hours of actual play time). A few comments:

- It does have a faster pace, even for my slow methodical style, but it seems about right (despite my earlier fears)
- On Chieftain, I did not have any aggressive civs. The Mongols neighboring me did make a few early piecemeal attacks, but nothing beyond that - even when I started roll through both the Mongols and Germans territories on my continent
- My goal was to try as many things as possible in the game - from units, to improvements, to buildings, to wonders and techs - just to see how they play. It does feel like a new game since there are so many things on those list that are different.
- Culture on seems to work (as a weapon) when you have all civs in proximity. Two continents make my cultural expansion irrelevant.
- Religion is a nice addition even though there is almost nothing to do with it.
- I do have some UI issues but they are minor (like not being able to read or poke on a button because the unit graphics in the lower left corner is in the way)
- I built the UN but with only 4 civs left, I can't get the votes because that would be the end of the game. Even the one time I was SG, I don't see any point in the resolutions since they would help the AI more than me.
- Diplomacy is something you have to pay attention to even though it is somewhat random. Since I had nearly everything possible, I didn't have to grovel (except for those periods I wanted to hold off on fighting). I hope in the harder levels, there would be more give and take.
- I love the graphics, very easy on the eyes and to play with
- In my end game with a huge points lead, it's boring to wait until 2050. I can't conquer, I don't have enough production for spaceship, domination is out of the question, I can't the votes for UN, legendary culture is an impossible goal even in one city and building battleships and tanks every 5-10 turns just have them sit there are boring.
- As with Civ2, I am really looking forward to challenging scenarios to extend gameplay once the buzz on the regular game wears off

[Mr. Wednesday]

My observation on your comments -- in addition to playing out the tutorial (not all that interesting), I also played one game on either warlord or chieftain:
* Religion can be a nice cash infusion if you have a holy city for a major religion, and it can tip diplomatic relations. However, tipped relations didn't have any effects (except for determining who I decided to roll when I needed more UN votes)

* Legendary culture is possible if you monopolize the wonders and push for it. Around 1950, you may find that you need to pick the appropriate civic, put the laggard cities on culture production, and install some great people as super specialists. I got a culture victory playing out the tutorial, and I think could have had a culture victory in the game I played out, if I'd wanted it -- I got one city to 50,000 without pushing it before I got the diplomatic victory, but the other two cities were in the 20's.

[Passacaglia]

Grr, I'm suddenly getting hit with a ton of bugs. In this game, two things I've never done before cause the game to crash: Converting a Great Prophet into a super-specialist, and sending a missionary to spread Christianity in a rival's city (with open borders). Anyone else heard anything about this?

[Buccaneer]

Originally Posted by Passacaglia

Grr, I'm suddenly getting hit with a ton of bugs. In this game, two things I've never done before cause the game to crash: Converting a Great Prophet into a super-specialist, and sending a missionary to spread Christianity in a rival's city (with open borders). Anyone else heard anything about this?

No, I have done both of those several times with no problems.

[Passacaglia]

Is there some kind of crazy movie that happens or something? It must be loading something that it can't load.

[Mr. Wednesday]

Making a great person into a super specialist does not trigger a movie, just the same animation as any other usage of the great person. Attempting to spread a religion triggers an animation of the missionary as the missionary is consumed, along with playing the signature musical bars for that religion.

[Buccaneer]

No, just the animation of a lighted staff and the beam-me-up thing. For slow downs, a reboot takes care of it. Maybe that'll help?

[vex]

I had a crash once I built Stonehenge.

[duckman]

I had a couple of crashes when I tried to load a created map I downloaded from Civfanatics. I'm not sure if it's the map or the game.

[Yossarian]

One bug that is avoidable relates to a crash to desktop clean - without the graphics card bailing or whatnot - the game just disappears.

It's caused apparently by doing two things in close succession - ie move then build road and not letting the animation (which one?) finish. So that explains some repeatable ones where it always crashes when unloading a unit from boat etc... it seems that if you let the animation finish it won't happen (according to one of the official testers)

[Crapshoot]

Question - does the random seed get preserved in Civ 4 ? Essentialy, I tested out this theory when a game crashed (and then repeated it by re-loading the game at the stage) - the same two unit's fighting seems to always yield the same result, down to the health of the unit (always ending up at 2.3 out of 6, for example). That to me is a biggie, because it means that before a fight, the result has already been determined - there is no proverbial "dice roll".

[Passacaglia]

Originally Posted by Crapshoot

Question - does the random seed get preserved in Civ 4 ? Essentialy, I tested out this theory when a game crashed (and then repeated it by re-loading the game at the stage) - the same two unit's fighting seems to always yield the same result, down to the health of the unit (always ending up at 2.3 out of 6, for example). That to me is a biggie, because it means that before a fight, the result has already been determined - there is no proverbial "dice roll".

Interesting. There has to be SOME randomness, though. I mean, the game can't determine the outcome of all possible scenarios before they even happen.

[Daimyo]

I think that was a feature added in civ3 to deal with the save-and-reload exploit. It actually saves the seed in the save game.

[Celeval]

Yes, random seed is saved in the save game.

[Crapshoot]

Damnit, if I want to cheat, I should damn well be able to.

[Passacaglia]

Originally Posted by Crapshoot

Damnit, if I want to cheat, I should damn well be able to.

Yeah, seriously. I mean, what's the big deal? I guess in PBEM games it makes a difference, but otherwise?

[Yossarian]

btw - re: my earlier comment about the animation bug - it seems that it's not somethign you can prevent by waiting.

I had a determinable bug when a worker woke and I gave the command to build a pasture.

This happened even if i loaded a save 3 turns earlier.

The solution was to tell the worker to move away then back to his tile and do the work on the next turn. It cost me one turn i guess but at least I could progress.

[duckman]

Has anyone had the game crash because of virtual memory? It's done it twice to me tonight.

[dixieflatline]

So I just finished my first game on prince. Had a rough start and just barely beat the americans to the last piece for the spaceship. I ended with "only" 3300 points. Anyone score fewer than that in a victory?

[Ksyrup]

Originally Posted by Mr. Wednesday

* Legendary culture is possible if you monopolize the wonders and push for it. Around 1950, you may find that you need to pick the appropriate civic, put the laggard cities on culture production, and install some great people as super specialists. I got a culture victory playing out the tutorial, and I think could have had a culture victory in the game I played out, if I'd wanted it -- I got one city to 50,000 without pushing it before I got the diplomatic victory, but the other two cities were in the 20's.

In the one game I've played so far, I had one city with 79K culture points, and two in the mid-20s. And one of those 2 I royally screwed up on, as it was taken for 2 turns by the French, so I think I lost all of the culture points it had amassed up to that point and started all over when I recaptured it. I think I would have gotten 2 out of 3 cities to 50K if that hadn't happened. So I certainly don't think it's impossible. I'll admit, though, that i didn't really think about trying to get 3 cities to that status, it just happened that way.

[Passacaglia]

Originally Posted by Ksyrup

In the one game I've played so far, I had one city with 79K culture points, and two in the mid-20s. And one of those 2 I royally screwed up on, as it was taken for 2 turns by the French, so I think I lost all of the culture points it had amassed up to that point and started all over when I recaptured it. I think I would have gotten 2 out of 3 cities to 50K if that hadn't happened. So I certainly don't think it's impossible. I'll admit, though, that i didn't really think about trying to get 3 cities to that status, it just happened that way.

How long was the city out of your hands? I had a city that was captured, and when I recaptured it a few turns later, it had most, if not all, of its culture.

[Ksyrup]

I don't know that it lost its culture for a fact. I thought it was on par with the other city that ended up so far ahead, so I presumed I lost some culture when the city was captured. Maybe that didn't happen, though. It was only a few turns that it was out of my hands, so if that affects it, then maybe it didn't lose much, if any.

[Ben E Lou]

Patch released.

[Ben E Lou]

Changes:

- increased cost of Apollo Program...

- increased SS parts cost...

- Animal Husbandry reveals Horses

- tweaked Rifling, Chemistry, Steel, and Railroad tech costs...

- increased late-game tech costs...

- can now add two specialists in size 1 city with Mercantilism...

- final score is now modified by difficulty level...

- Speed up load times

- Global performance enhancements



Added:

- Include WB map size in the description field

- Save login name

- Added password encryption

- Added regenerate Map Button to World builder Map Mode...

- checkbox for using low resolution textures

- more logging for init failure

- minspec / video memory checking

- Added ability to change to and from fullscreen while in-game

- holding during startup will clean out the cache

- improved bink playback, added ini options



Fixes:

- ATI issue Failed to Init Renderer Fixed

- Multiplayer Lobby list jump problem and lobby crash fixed

- fixed war weariness calculation bug...

- units maintain their name when upgraded

- fixed Gold-for-Gold diplo exploit...

- fixed no research choice overflow exploit...

- Fix for voice initialization crash

- Fix addressing takeover AI and retirement OOS.

- Fixed issue with diplomacy text being always used in its first form in the translator.

- Popups, screens, and diplomacy properly cleared when exiting from main menu.

- Games protected by admin passwords (only) cannot be loaded if the version is different from the one that created the save

- Fixed bug where player could not offer any deal to other human in PBEM/Hotseat

- Sorting by date on domestic advisor now works.

- fixed bug where settlers could not move if the strategy layer was selected

- fixed Ironworks...

- fixed AI units not obeying open borders rules on declaration of war...

- fixed bug that prevent placing of units in world-builder

- fixed bug that prevented gifting of units to a human player

- stack attack infinite loop fixed

- Civic screen update fix (wasn’t showing the right maintenance and anarchy values)

- ctrl-g crash fix, optimized city bar art

- fixed right-click menu crash

- Intro movie crashing problems

[saldana]

i have played through about 4 short (7hour) games to this point, and have now found 2 huge things that pissed me off.

1. on a small sized continents map, there were only 2 souces of coal, 2 sources of aluminum, but 5 sources of Uranium...i think a little work needs to be done in the balance there

2. in the same game, there were 5 players...4 of us were on one continent, the 5th had the other continent all to himself until well into the 1500's. again, better balance in starting positions would be nice.

the other thing that irritates me at this point, unless i just havent gotten a tech that allows it, is that I cannot pay people off to vote for me for un resolutions. i remember this was a part of Alpha Centauri, and wonder why they chose to leave it out of this game

[Mr. Wednesday]

The patch is not at the official website -- where is it?

[duckman]

Originally Posted by Mr. Wednesday

The patch is not at the official website -- where is it?

You can download it by loading up the game, go to "advanced", and click on "check for updates." However, I've tried it just a few minutes ago and it did not have one to download.

[Ksyrup]

Same here. And I can't find the patch anywhere.

[duckman]

Originally Posted by Ksyrup

Same here. And I can't find the patch anywhere.

It was put on hold.

[Ben E Lou]

1.09 just released...

Changes:

- increased cost of Apollo Program...
- increased SS parts cost...
- Animal Husbandry reveals Horses
- tweaked Rifling, Chemistry, Steel, and Railroad tech costs...
- increased late-game tech costs...
- can now add two specialists in size 1 city with Mercantilism...
- final score is now modified by difficulty level...
- Speed up load times
- Global performance enhancements

Added:

- Include WB map size in the description field
- Save login name
- Added password encryption
- Added regenerate Map Button to World builder Map Mode...
- checkbox for using low resolution textures
- more logging for init failure
- minspec / video memory checking
- Added ability to change to and from fullscreen while in-game
- holding during startup will clean out the cache
- improved bink playback, added ini options

Fixes:

- ATI issue Failed to Init Renderer Fixed
- Multiplayer Lobby list jump problem and lobby crash fixed
- fixed war weariness calculation bug...
- units maintain their name when upgraded
- fixed Gold-for-Gold diplo exploit...
- fixed no research choice overflow exploit...
- Fix for voice initialization crash
- Fix addressing takeover AI and retirement OOS.
- Fixed issue with diplomacy text being always used in its first form in the translator.
- Popups, screens, and diplomacy properly cleared when exiting from main menu.
- Games protected by admin passwords (only) cannot be loaded if the version is different from the one that created the save
- Fixed bug where player could not offer any deal to other human in PBEM/Hotseat
- Sorting by date on domestic advisor now works.
- fixed bug where settlers could not move if the strategy layer was selected
- fixed Ironworks...
- fixed AI units not obeying open borders rules on declaration of war...
- fixed bug that prevent placing of units in world-builder
- fixed bug that prevented gifting of units to a human player
- stack attack infinite loop fixed
- Civic screen update fix (wasn’t showing the right maintenance and anarchy values)
- ctrl-g crash fix, optimized city bar art
- fixed right-click menu crash
- Intro movie crashing problems

[duckman]

I feel sorry for those who have dial-up. The patch is pretty big (24.8 Megs).

[vex]

wooooooo

[vex]

Uh oh, I got an error msg while installing:

Error 1706: No valid source could be found for product Sid Meier's Civ IV. The windows installer cannot continue.