Alright boyz, here we go!! Civilization IV first impressions... - Page 6

Butter · 10-31-2005, 12:15 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Galaxy

Failed to login I am getting.

Yoda?

Godzilla Blitz · 10-31-2005, 12:25 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by moriarty

Couple of random things that irk me with the interface.

When you mouse over the buttons at the top right (advisors) the text indicating what they do appears in the lower left. Seems like it should appear near the button so you don't have to look on the opposite end of the screen. Pretty minor as I'm sure you'll memorize the shortcuts but still weird.

Yes! I noticed this in the first five minutes of the game. Drove me nuts for a bit. Felt like I was watching tennis. Top right, bottom left, my eyes were going crazy.

I thought about mentioning it in my initial impressions, but I figured I would be the only one looney enough to notice it.

It does get better quickly though. As you mention, you don't need the info help after an hour or two.

Quote:

Originally Posted by moriarty

When I have multiple cities produce items on the same turn, the "what do you want to produce next" screen pops up. If I hit examine city, then enter after examining ... it jumps to the next city. I would think that it would exit back to the screen where I can decide what to produce (I know I'm explaining this poorly). I mean you should be able to examine city and then set production, not examine city jump to next city, have to click back on first city and set production. Anyone else having this issue, or am I just hitting the wrong keys?

Yes. The city one doesn't bother me much because I generally make the choice from within the city, but the one that gets me is the "what do you want to research next?" offer. If you click "Let me see the big picture..." you can see the research tree. Exit from the tree and it takes you to your first city building option. Seems like it should take you back to the research choice. One thing that just struck me, though, is that perhaps you can make your research choice from within the research tree.

KWhit · 10-31-2005, 12:36 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Godzilla Blitz

One thing that just struck me, though, is that perhaps you can make your research choice from within the research tree.

Yes, you can. Just click on the tech.

twothree · 10-31-2005, 12:54 PM

Well, I finally finished my first complete game on Noble difficulty over the weekend. I won a space race victory in 2007 after an in game time of thirteen and one half hours, with a good chunk of that time spent reading the in game civilopedia. I previously had played through the tutorial and then played a few turns on Settler difficulty to get use to the UI.

I started with a random civ (Egyptian) on a standard size continent map. Looking at the Egyptian's traits of Spiritual and Creative, I decided to try for a culture victory. I quickly ran into my two continental neighbors the Chinese and Japanese. I used my settlers to place cities to fence them in and claimed the majority of our continent. I end up building 13 cities. And 2 Chinese cities ended up culture flipping to my side for a total of 15 cities at game end.

I had almost no contact with the remaing 4 civs until the middle to end game. An interesting part of the game was that no one on our continent founded any religions; until, I was the first to discover Divine Right and founded Islam, the very last religion available. Islam easily became the state religion for all 3 civs on our continent and I made quite a bit of money from that.

I never was at war with any other nation, my plan. And, was second in technology for most of the game, behind Gandhi, who I later found out had a continent all to himself. During the later half of the middle of the game, I decide it would be impossible to win a culture victory the way I was playing. So, I ended up in a tech race with Gandhi until end game. My top 3 cities ended up with about 25,000 culture each and you need 50,000 in 3 cities to win by culture.

While playing my game, I observed one very interesting fact, which may or may not be a bug. If your settler builds a city on almost any type of terrain WITHOUT a resource on it, the citizen who automatically works the middle square with the city in it produces exactly 2 food, 1 production, and 1 commerce. The exception: build a city on a hills/plains square. The citizen who works this city square produces exactly 2 food, 2 production, and 1 commerce. One extra production plus a +25% defence for the city from the hill. Again, this could be a bug, but if it isn't then you should almost always choose to build your cities on a hills/plains if you can, especially in the early game.

A grassland, plains, desert, snow, tundra, hills/grassland, hills/tundra, hills/snow, etc. only yields 2/1/1 when a settler builds a city on it, and that is with or without a river next to it. Also, if you build a city on a square with a resource on it, this does not apply, and your middle city square may yield something besides 2/1/1. I had one city built on a resource that had a yield of 2/1/2 from it's center square.

Godzilla Blitz · 10-31-2005, 12:59 PM

twothree: Congrats on your win!

Great tips on the city building. That will come in handy.

Quote:

Originally Posted by KWhit

Yes, you can. Just click on the tech.

Aha! Thanks!

fflix · 10-31-2005, 01:26 PM

In the city screen, is there an easy way to determine which tiles are being worked on by citizens? I didn't really notice a difference besides the icons getting a little bigger. In SMAC this was clear because the resources generated wouldn't show up until a citzen was working the tile. In Civ4 it seems like the resources are showing up in the city screen for every tile.

moriarty · 10-31-2005, 01:28 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by fflix

In the city screen, is there an easy way to determine which tiles are being worked on by citizens? I didn't really notice a difference besides the icons getting a little bigger. In SMAC this was clear because the resources generated wouldn't show up until a citzen was working the tile. In Civ4 it seems like the resources are showing up in the city screen for every tile.

They're circled. Look for the white circles. You can click on them to remove a circle/worked tile and click on an empty tile to work a new tile.

Ben E Lou · 10-31-2005, 01:29 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by fflix

In the city screen, is there an easy way to determine which tiles are being worked on by citizens? I didn't really notice a difference besides the icons getting a little bigger. In SMAC this was clear because the resources generated wouldn't show up until a citzen was working the tile. In Civ4 it seems like the resources are showing up in the city screen for every tile.

There's a white circle around resources that are being worked.

fflix · 10-31-2005, 01:56 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by moriarty

They're circled. Look for the white circles. You can click on them to remove a circle/worked tile and click on an empty tile to work a new tile.

thanks

spleen1015 · 10-31-2005, 02:08 PM

I have a hard time saving a game and coming back to play it later. So, I usually research some where close to gunpowder, then quit. When it is time to play again, I start over. I dunno why.

Anyway, I fired up a game last night that I am forced my self to play through. I was running away with the game score wise. I have 2500ish and 2nd was around 1600ish. I am firing along trying to research quickly so that I can get a space victory and Julius Cesear wasn't happy with me and declared war.

Well, I wasn't prepared. He comes in with his elephants wiping out all of my tile improvements, destroying my infrastructure. Having not built many military units, I'm at a huge disadvantage. With him taking out my infrastruture, I can't build units quick enough and soon I'm down to 2 cities from 8.

I'm able to hold him off for about 10 turns trying to save my neck, but he had one last rush planned and slaughtered both of my cities on one turn.

This game was with 5 civs. Persians and the Mongolians had a continent to themselves.

One of my big problems is I play too fast. I can never get to the next turn quick enough. My other problem is I don't like to be defensive. If there is a war, I have to be the aggressor or I don't like playing.

This is definitely a better game than III, though. I like many of the changes.

Ksyrup · 10-31-2005, 02:39 PM

For each of the leaders, there is a favorite civic. I haven't read anything that discusses what that means - is there a bonus to using that civic, or a penalty for using a competing civic? I'm trying to decide what country to choose and what leader, but I don't really udnerstand what the "favorite civic" adds to game play, if anything.

jeff061 · 10-31-2005, 02:42 PM

If you use the same civics as another civ you can get + points in your relationship with them. They will say something along the lines of "You have chosen your civics wisely". Same with religion.

So if you really want to kiss ass align your religion and civics to be the same as your target and open up some trading with them.

TroyF · 10-31-2005, 02:55 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jeff061

If you use the same civics as another civ you can get + points in your relationship with them. They will say something along the lines of "You have chosen your civics wisely". Same with religion.

So if you really want to kiss ass align your religion and civics to be the same as your target and open up some trading with them.

Yep. And slowly build up your military and bide time. Gift the neighbor a tech or two. Trade for a tech or two that he has. Make sure to trade maps.

Then you stack three or four sets of units, get your boats into positions, ask for his head on a pole.

Oh, one other note. Pray that he hasn't done the same to you and isn't ready and waiting with a third alliance you hadn't considered. I'll never trust that Japanese guy again.

Galaxy · 10-31-2005, 02:58 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by twothree

Well, I finally finished my first complete game on Noble difficulty over the weekend. I won a space race victory in 2007 after an in game time of thirteen and one half hours, with a good chunk of that time spent reading the in game civilopedia. I previously had played through the tutorial and then played a few turns on Settler difficulty to get use to the UI.

I started with a random civ (Egyptian) on a standard size continent map. Looking at the Egyptian's traits of Spiritual and Creative, I decided to try for a culture victory. I quickly ran into my two continental neighbors the Chinese and Japanese. I used my settlers to place cities to fence them in and claimed the majority of our continent. I end up building 13 cities. And 2 Chinese cities ended up culture flipping to my side for a total of 15 cities at game end.

I had almost no contact with the remaing 4 civs until the middle to end game. An interesting part of the game was that no one on our continent founded any religions; until, I was the first to discover Divine Right and founded Islam, the very last religion available. Islam easily became the state religion for all 3 civs on our continent and I made quite a bit of money from that.

I never was at war with any other nation, my plan. And, was second in technology for most of the game, behind Gandhi, who I later found out had a continent all to himself. During the later half of the middle of the game, I decide it would be impossible to win a culture victory the way I was playing. So, I ended up in a tech race with Gandhi until end game. My top 3 cities ended up with about 25,000 culture each and you need 50,000 in 3 cities to win by culture.

While playing my game, I observed one very interesting fact, which may or may not be a bug. If your settler builds a city on almost any type of terrain WITHOUT a resource on it, the citizen who automatically works the middle square with the city in it produces exactly 2 food, 1 production, and 1 commerce. The exception: build a city on a hills/plains square. The citizen who works this city square produces exactly 2 food, 2 production, and 1 commerce. One extra production plus a +25% defence for the city from the hill. Again, this could be a bug, but if it isn't then you should almost always choose to build your cities on a hills/plains if you can, especially in the early game.

A grassland, plains, desert, snow, tundra, hills/grassland, hills/tundra, hills/snow, etc. only yields 2/1/1 when a settler builds a city on it, and that is with or without a river next to it. Also, if you build a city on a square with a resource on it, this does not apply, and your middle city square may yield something besides 2/1/1. I had one city built on a resource that had a yield of 2/1/2 from it's center square.

Nice...How do you profit off religion?

Galaxy · 10-31-2005, 03:07 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Butter_of_69

Yoda?

What?

moriarty · 10-31-2005, 03:12 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Galaxy

Nice...How do you profit off religion?

If you build a shrine (see Great prophets) you get 1 gp per turn for every city with that religion. I think.

Galaxy · 10-31-2005, 03:14 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by moriarty

If you build a shrine (see Great prophets) you get 1 gp per turn for every city with that religion. I think.

In your cities, or all the cities in the world that have that religion?

ISiddiqui · 10-31-2005, 03:16 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Galaxy

In your cities, or all the cities in the world that have that religion?

All in the WORLD. But you must have a Holy City to create the shrine.

moriarty · 10-31-2005, 03:17 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Galaxy

In your cities, or all the cities in the world that have that religion?

I don't have the manual in front of me, but I believe all the cities (yours + other Civs that have adopted the religion). Plus the added bonus of the other civs that have adopted the religion are friendlier to you.

Bonegavel · 10-31-2005, 03:18 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Galaxy

Nice...How do you profit off religion?

It is also a tool to spy on another civ as well as sending missionaries to convert the masses. If another Civ is your religion, it is a bonus during negotiation time.

spleen1015 · 10-31-2005, 04:00 PM

Do you guys always trade Open Borders? I never want to because I don't want the AI going through me to take land.

Coffee Warlord · 10-31-2005, 04:01 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by spleen1015

Do you guys always trade Open Borders? I never want to because I don't want the AI going through me take land.

By order of Emperor Nielsen, no foreigner is permitted to set foot in our lands. Ever.

Galaxy · 10-31-2005, 04:05 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Coffee Warlord

By order of Emperor Nielsen, no foreigner is permitted to set foot in our lands. Ever.

Not even in a military stragetic move?

jeff061 · 10-31-2005, 04:10 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by spleen1015

Do you guys always trade Open Borders? I never want to because I don't want the AI going through me to take land.

I believe you need open borders to establish foreign trade routes, it also gives you a + relationship bump. So there are positives and negatives to it.

yabanci · 10-31-2005, 04:36 PM

what I don't like is the way it recommends which tech to research, which units to produce, where to build cities, etc. It ends up being a thoughtless exercise in clicking buttons. Is there any way to turn the recommendations off?

jeff061 · 10-31-2005, 04:37 PM

Sid's tips and/or advisor popups under options? Haven't tried it.

Mr. Wednesday · 10-31-2005, 04:43 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by yabanci

what I don't like is the way it recommends which tech to research, which units to produce, where to build cities, etc. It ends up being a thoughtless exercise in clicking buttons. Is there any way to turn the recommendations off?

In Civ 3, I didn't always agree with the build recommendations (so sometimes I would go along, sometimes I would override), but I still liked having them because they would generally tend to keep my military more build-up than if I were left to my own devices.

Then again, the last time I played SMAC, the degree of automation largely reduced my input to placing cities and fighting wars, and I wasn't really comfortable with that. Maybe it would have been better if I were more familiar with the city improvements, though.

Coffee Warlord · 10-31-2005, 04:44 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Galaxy

Not even in a military stragetic move?

You see, the Holy German Empire (I've decided I liked them better than Rome's Exp/Org traits) does not require such ridiculous measures. We have our own version of Open Borders, one which is "opened" by a round of cannon fire, and then "closed" again once our Holy Troops Guided By The Light of Confucius have raised the flag of the Fatherland on opposing cities.

That's how we open borders in Germany.

Fouts · 10-31-2005, 05:25 PM

Finally completed a full game of Civ4 couple nights ago. I came in 3rd out of 10, but the really interesting thing was how the United Nations was handled. Each leader was given some votes (I had around 100 votes) to participate. Just not sure how they picked the two leaders up for election. 1 guy was the points leader, but the other guy was #4 in the scoring. Guess I'll read up on that.

Anyway, the UN leader was allowed to propose a bunch of resolutions for everyone to vote on. Pretty cool. I think some sports sims could use something like this for voting on expansion or salary caps, etc.

Bonegavel · 10-31-2005, 08:38 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by yabanci

what I don't like is the way it recommends which tech to research, which units to produce, where to build cities, etc. It ends up being a thoughtless exercise in clicking buttons. Is there any way to turn the recommendations off?

I rarely agree with what they recommend.

I would like it turned off, if for no other reason than the recommended items are moved to the top and therefore it screws me up when I'm looking.

TroyF · 10-31-2005, 08:43 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fouts

Finally completed a full game of Civ4 couple nights ago. I came in 3rd out of 10, but the really interesting thing was how the United Nations was handled. Each leader was given some votes (I had around 100 votes) to participate. Just not sure how they picked the two leaders up for election. 1 guy was the points leader, but the other guy was #4 in the scoring. Guess I'll read up on that.

Anyway, the UN leader was allowed to propose a bunch of resolutions for everyone to vote on. Pretty cool. I think some sports sims could use something like this for voting on expansion or salary caps, etc.

I believe the person who builds the United Nations wonder is locked into one of the two spots.

jbmagic · 10-31-2005, 08:56 PM

what level you guys recommend to play on?

what level are you currently playing on?

Eaglesfan27 · 10-31-2005, 09:00 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by fflix

In the city screen, is there an easy way to determine which tiles are being worked on by citizens? I didn't really notice a difference besides the icons getting a little bigger. In SMAC this was clear because the resources generated wouldn't show up until a citzen was working the tile. In Civ4 it seems like the resources are showing up in the city screen for every tile.

I was accidently going into the "city lite" screen when I first started playing the game. That screen doesn't show the little white circles. Make sure you go into the proper city screen which is done by double clicking on the city itself. If you click on the name of the city, it goes to the "city lite" screen.

Flasch186 · 10-31-2005, 09:07 PM

i still feel like the graphics give it a "kids" feel...I like the game, but feel like im playing a kids version. I think I wouldve liked if the graphics WERENT so polished...i dunno.

TroyF · 10-31-2005, 09:18 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Flasch186

i still feel like the graphics give it a "kids" feel...I like the game, but feel like im playing a kids version. I think I wouldve liked if the graphics WERENT so polished...i dunno.

wow. I couldn't disagree more. I love the graphics in this one.

Flasch186 · 10-31-2005, 09:38 PM

have you seen the ironclad's lean.....hello unrealistic.

Galaxy · 10-31-2005, 09:43 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by TroyF

wow. I couldn't disagree more. I love the graphics in this one.

Same here....

Schmidty · 10-31-2005, 09:47 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by TroyF

wow. I couldn't disagree more. I love the graphics in this one.

Yep. If one feels like they are playing a kid's game, they should just stick to bare-bones games or binary. Like FOF. Which I still love.

TroyF · 10-31-2005, 10:22 PM

Thing is, this is a strategy game. I don't "expect" good graphics. As long as the screen tells me what I need, I'm good to go. I know some have had a little difficulty seeing things, but being able to view the screen at max resolution, I'm not having any issues there at all.

I couldn't be happier with the graphics in the game. I also couldn't be happier with the strategy of the game. Even playing it on the lower levels to get an understanding of how to play, it's amazing to me how many different strategies you can use in this thing. Also how little mircro management you have to do overall. If I had to set up my workers to create everything, I couldn't play the game. But being able to let them work on their own and only clicking them a few times a game to give them a specific order is amazing.

This is clearly the strategy game of the year and ranks right up there with Half Life 2 as the overall game of the year IMHO.

ISiddiqui · 10-31-2005, 10:29 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by yabanci

what I don't like is the way it recommends which tech to research, which units to produce, where to build cities, etc. It ends up being a thoughtless exercise in clicking buttons. Is there any way to turn the recommendations off?

You could, you know, not listen to them?

A lot of the times I just pick what I want. But it's nice to see what would be best for culture sometimes (btw, may I add here, that I LOVE the way culture is implimented in this game... FAR better than in CivIII. In this game, culture flipping only seems to happen when another Civ tries to plop in a small city to try to steal a resource or move a border... very nice indeed).

Oh, and a LOVE the graphics. I wish my computer was faster, but I think it's a good tradeoff (a little slow for fabulous graphics).

Coop · 10-31-2005, 11:13 PM

Half Life 2 came out last year

saldana · 11-01-2005, 12:08 AM

i think my favorite things to this point are the promotions for the cavalry units that make them immune to the first strike ability of archers (cant remember what its called, but its a second level promotion and totally turns the tides against archers defending cities) and the button on the workers for "automate trade routes" so you can just click on that in the 1500 ad area and all your railroads are put in automatically.

ISiddiqui · 11-01-2005, 12:22 AM

Speaking of railroad building, I also love the 'create route to' button that builds a road from one city to another with just two clicks.

Fouts · 11-01-2005, 12:30 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by TroyF

This is clearly the strategy game of the year and ranks right up there with Half Life 2 as the overall game of the year IMHO.

I had just told my wife today that Civ4 has become one of my favorite games ever. I can replay this a hundred times and it will always feel like a new game.

ISiddiqui · 11-01-2005, 12:37 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fouts

I had just told my wife today that Civ4 has become one of my favorite games ever. I can replay this a hundred times and it will always feel like a new game.

Oh oh... now she's got advance warning. You fool! You're DOOMED!

sabotai · 11-01-2005, 12:47 AM

Fine....I guess I'll go out and buy this game too....sometimes I really hate this forum.

Eaglesfan27 · 11-01-2005, 01:00 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by TroyF

Thing is, this is a strategy game. I don't "expect" good graphics. As long as the screen tells me what I need, I'm good to go. I know some have had a little difficulty seeing things, but being able to view the screen at max resolution, I'm not having any issues there at all.

I couldn't be happier with the graphics in the game. I also couldn't be happier with the strategy of the game. Even playing it on the lower levels to get an understanding of how to play, it's amazing to me how many different strategies you can use in this thing. Also how little mircro management you have to do overall. If I had to set up my workers to create everything, I couldn't play the game. But being able to let them work on their own and only clicking them a few times a game to give them a specific order is amazing.

This is clearly the strategy game of the year and ranks right up there with Half Life 2 as the overall game of the year IMHO.

I agree with everything in this post (except the HL 2 comment since I never played that.)

riz · 11-01-2005, 07:40 AM

Damn you guys with the game already at hand !

*still waiting for the euro release*

Ksyrup · 11-01-2005, 07:43 AM

I've only played through the tutorial so far, but I think the graphics are great. Since I've got a brand-new computer, everything works wonderfully, and I love the ebb and flow of the waves on the coast, etc. I'm hoping to start a real game tonight, but we'll see.

Buccaneer · 11-01-2005, 08:47 AM

I, too, echo the recent comments. I started to play a real game (at a lower level) last night and while I am still not sure if anything I am doing is on the right path(s) towards an unknown goal, it definitely has the addictive "just-one-more-turn" feel. The only new game in the past 4-5 years that have come close to being that addictive right off was FBCB. As far as the graphics comments, I can get used to it as I play more. The UI is close to being perfect and using the [rollever] can get me all of the info I need about a tile quickly. But if any of you do hear of a mod on the yields, let me know. For example, having a forest on a plains almost completely hides the food and production symbols. They need to pop up more, imo.

Another good thing in echoing Fouts is like Civ2, this game is perfectly replayable - and even more so for me because I love to play scenarios more than the regular game.

By the way, do you think it would be cool to share some early game strategies here? What I would be interested in hearing is the decisions on techs, culture, religion, civics, units, improvements, etc. in the early game - and WHY.

10-31-2005, 02:08 PM	#260
spleen1015 Coordinator Join Date: Sep 2003	I have a hard time saving a game and coming back to play it later. So, I usually research some where close to gunpowder, then quit. When it is time to play again, I start over. I dunno why. Anyway, I fired up a game last night that I am forced my self to play through. I was running away with the game score wise. I have 2500ish and 2nd was around 1600ish. I am firing along trying to research quickly so that I can get a space victory and Julius Cesear wasn't happy with me and declared war. Well, I wasn't prepared. He comes in with his elephants wiping out all of my tile improvements, destroying my infrastructure. Having not built many military units, I'm at a huge disadvantage. With him taking out my infrastruture, I can't build units quick enough and soon I'm down to 2 cities from 8. I'm able to hold him off for about 10 turns trying to save my neck, but he had one last rush planned and slaughtered both of my cities on one turn. This game was with 5 civs. Persians and the Mongolians had a continent to themselves. One of my big problems is I play too fast. I can never get to the next turn quick enough. My other problem is I don't like to be defensive. If there is a war, I have to be the aggressor or I don't like playing. This is definitely a better game than III, though. I like many of the changes. Last edited by spleen1015 : 10-31-2005 at 02:09 PM.

10-31-2005, 02:39 PM	#261
Ksyrup This guy has posted so much, his fingers are about to fall off. Join Date: Nov 2000 Location: In Absentia	For each of the leaders, there is a favorite civic. I haven't read anything that discusses what that means - is there a bonus to using that civic, or a penalty for using a competing civic? I'm trying to decide what country to choose and what leader, but I don't really udnerstand what the "favorite civic" adds to game play, if anything. __________________ M's pitcher Miguel Batista: "Now, I feel like I've had everything. I've talked pitching with Sandy Koufax, had Kenny G play for me. Maybe if I could have an interview with God, then I'd be served. I'd be complete."

10-31-2005, 02:42 PM	#262
jeff061 Grizzled Veteran Join Date: Nov 2003 Location: MA	If you use the same civics as another civ you can get + points in your relationship with them. They will say something along the lines of "You have chosen your civics wisely". Same with religion. So if you really want to kiss ass align your religion and civics to be the same as your target and open up some trading with them. __________________

10-31-2005, 04:00 PM	#271
spleen1015 Coordinator Join Date: Sep 2003	Do you guys always trade Open Borders? I never want to because I don't want the AI going through me to take land. Last edited by spleen1015 : 10-31-2005 at 04:00 PM.

10-31-2005, 04:37 PM	#276
jeff061 Grizzled Veteran Join Date: Nov 2003 Location: MA	Sid's tips and/or advisor popups under options? Haven't tried it. __________________

10-31-2005, 12:54 PM	#254
twothree College Prospect Join Date: May 2005	Well, I finally finished my first complete game on Noble difficulty over the weekend. I won a space race victory in 2007 after an in game time of thirteen and one half hours, with a good chunk of that time spent reading the in game civilopedia. I previously had played through the tutorial and then played a few turns on Settler difficulty to get use to the UI. I started with a random civ (Egyptian) on a standard size continent map. Looking at the Egyptian's traits of Spiritual and Creative, I decided to try for a culture victory. I quickly ran into my two continental neighbors the Chinese and Japanese. I used my settlers to place cities to fence them in and claimed the majority of our continent. I end up building 13 cities. And 2 Chinese cities ended up culture flipping to my side for a total of 15 cities at game end. I had almost no contact with the remaing 4 civs until the middle to end game. An interesting part of the game was that no one on our continent founded any religions; until, I was the first to discover Divine Right and founded Islam, the very last religion available. Islam easily became the state religion for all 3 civs on our continent and I made quite a bit of money from that. I never was at war with any other nation, my plan. And, was second in technology for most of the game, behind Gandhi, who I later found out had a continent all to himself. During the later half of the middle of the game, I decide it would be impossible to win a culture victory the way I was playing. So, I ended up in a tech race with Gandhi until end game. My top 3 cities ended up with about 25,000 culture each and you need 50,000 in 3 cities to win by culture. While playing my game, I observed one very interesting fact, which may or may not be a bug. If your settler builds a city on almost any type of terrain WITHOUT a resource on it, the citizen who automatically works the middle square with the city in it produces exactly 2 food, 1 production, and 1 commerce. The exception: build a city on a hills/plains square. The citizen who works this city square produces exactly 2 food, 2 production, and 1 commerce. One extra production plus a +25% defence for the city from the hill. Again, this could be a bug, but if it isn't then you should almost always choose to build your cities on a hills/plains if you can, especially in the early game. A grassland, plains, desert, snow, tundra, hills/grassland, hills/tundra, hills/snow, etc. only yields 2/1/1 when a settler builds a city on it, and that is with or without a river next to it. Also, if you build a city on a square with a resource on it, this does not apply, and your middle city square may yield something besides 2/1/1. I had one city built on a resource that had a yield of 2/1/2 from it's center square.

10-31-2005, 01:26 PM	#256
fflix Mascot Join Date: Mar 2002 Location: CA	In the city screen, is there an easy way to determine which tiles are being worked on by citizens? I didn't really notice a difference besides the icons getting a little bigger. In SMAC this was clear because the resources generated wouldn't show up until a citzen was working the tile. In Civ4 it seems like the resources are showing up in the city screen for every tile.

10-31-2005, 04:36 PM	#275
yabanci College Benchwarmer Join Date: Jun 2003	what I don't like is the way it recommends which tech to research, which units to produce, where to build cities, etc. It ends up being a thoughtless exercise in clicking buttons. Is there any way to turn the recommendations off?

10-31-2005, 05:25 PM	#279
Fouts College Starter Join Date: Nov 2003 Location: California	Finally completed a full game of Civ4 couple nights ago. I came in 3rd out of 10, but the really interesting thing was how the United Nations was handled. Each leader was given some votes (I had around 100 votes) to participate. Just not sure how they picked the two leaders up for election. 1 guy was the points leader, but the other guy was #4 in the scoring. Guess I'll read up on that. Anyway, the UN leader was allowed to propose a bunch of resolutions for everyone to vote on. Pretty cool. I think some sports sims could use something like this for voting on expansion or salary caps, etc.

10-31-2005, 08:56 PM	#282
jbmagic Pro Starter Join Date: Apr 2004	what level you guys recommend to play on? what level are you currently playing on?

10-31-2005, 09:07 PM	#284
Flasch186 Coordinator Join Date: May 2002 Location: Jacksonville, FL	i still feel like the graphics give it a "kids" feel...I like the game, but feel like im playing a kids version. I think I wouldve liked if the graphics WERENT so polished...i dunno. __________________ Jacksonville-florida-homes-for-sale Putting a New Spin on Real Estate! ----------------------------------------------------------- Commissioner of the USFL USFL

10-31-2005, 09:38 PM	#286
Flasch186 Coordinator Join Date: May 2002 Location: Jacksonville, FL	have you seen the ironclad's lean.....hello unrealistic. __________________ Jacksonville-florida-homes-for-sale Putting a New Spin on Real Estate! ----------------------------------------------------------- Commissioner of the USFL USFL

10-31-2005, 10:22 PM	#289
TroyF Coordinator Join Date: Oct 2000	Thing is, this is a strategy game. I don't "expect" good graphics. As long as the screen tells me what I need, I'm good to go. I know some have had a little difficulty seeing things, but being able to view the screen at max resolution, I'm not having any issues there at all. I couldn't be happier with the graphics in the game. I also couldn't be happier with the strategy of the game. Even playing it on the lower levels to get an understanding of how to play, it's amazing to me how many different strategies you can use in this thing. Also how little mircro management you have to do overall. If I had to set up my workers to create everything, I couldn't play the game. But being able to let them work on their own and only clicking them a few times a game to give them a specific order is amazing. This is clearly the strategy game of the year and ranks right up there with Half Life 2 as the overall game of the year IMHO.

10-31-2005, 11:13 PM	#291
Coop High School JV Join Date: Nov 2003 Location: NJ	Half Life 2 came out last year __________________ eNFL-Carolina Panthers Xbox Live- Coop421

11-01-2005, 12:08 AM	#292
saldana Pro Starter Join Date: Aug 2005 Location: Bethlehem, Pa	i think my favorite things to this point are the promotions for the cavalry units that make them immune to the first strike ability of archers (cant remember what its called, but its a second level promotion and totally turns the tides against archers defending cities) and the button on the workers for "automate trade routes" so you can just click on that in the 1500 ad area and all your railroads are put in automatically.

11-01-2005, 12:22 AM	#293
ISiddiqui Hall Of Famer Join Date: Jan 2001 Location: Decatur, GA	Speaking of railroad building, I also love the 'create route to' button that builds a road from one city to another with just two clicks. __________________ "A prayer for the wild at heart, kept in cages" -Tennessee Williams

11-01-2005, 12:47 AM	#296
sabotai General Manager Join Date: Oct 2000 Location: The Satellite of Love	Fine....I guess I'll go out and buy this game too....sometimes I really hate this forum.

11-01-2005, 07:40 AM	#298
riz SI Games Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: Helsinki, Finland	Damn you guys with the game already at hand ! still waiting for the euro release

11-01-2005, 07:43 AM	#299
Ksyrup This guy has posted so much, his fingers are about to fall off. Join Date: Nov 2000 Location: In Absentia	I've only played through the tutorial so far, but I think the graphics are great. Since I've got a brand-new computer, everything works wonderfully, and I love the ebb and flow of the waves on the coast, etc. I'm hoping to start a real game tonight, but we'll see. __________________ M's pitcher Miguel Batista: "Now, I feel like I've had everything. I've talked pitching with Sandy Koufax, had Kenny G play for me. Maybe if I could have an interview with God, then I'd be served. I'd be complete."

11-01-2005, 08:47 AM	#300
Buccaneer Head Coach Join Date: Oct 2000 Location: Colorado	I, too, echo the recent comments. I started to play a real game (at a lower level) last night and while I am still not sure if anything I am doing is on the right path(s) towards an unknown goal, it definitely has the addictive "just-one-more-turn" feel. The only new game in the past 4-5 years that have come close to being that addictive right off was FBCB. As far as the graphics comments, I can get used to it as I play more. The UI is close to being perfect and using the [rollever] can get me all of the info I need about a tile quickly. But if any of you do hear of a mod on the yields, let me know. For example, having a forest on a plains almost completely hides the food and production symbols. They need to pop up more, imo. Another good thing in echoing Fouts is like Civ2, this game is perfectly replayable - and even more so for me because I love to play scenarios more than the regular game. By the way, do you think it would be cool to share some early game strategies here? What I would be interested in hearing is the decisions on techs, culture, religion, civics, units, improvements, etc. in the early game - and WHY.

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