Civ 4 is being released tomorrow

The Jester · Post by **The Jester** » 2005-10-31 07:29am

Do Jaguar Warriors still exist? And do they still kick major arse like they did in Civ3?

mjn6172 · Post by **mjn6172** » 2005-10-31 11:38am

The fix from the Firaxis worked for me, so I've been playing some over the weekend. The game runs SLOW, but that's to be expected on my old computer, since I barely meet the required specs (1.8 GhZ and 512 megs of ram).

Despite all of the problems, I absolutely love this game. I'm still working on my first playthrough right now. As Saladin, so far I've founded every religion possible except Judaism, somehow Washington beat me to that one. The great prophet wonders added a TON of gold to my income, even more now that I've switched to Free Religion and spread all of the various religions into all of my cities.

Combat, particularly early on, is much more complex in this game. I shared my starting continent with Spain, so eventually we went to war with each other. Early defensive units like Archers get first strike, which means their attacks are calculated before your attacks are. A set of fortified archers behind city walls can repel almost anything that can't counteract their first strike ability (Horse archers and some mounted units at least have that ability.) Catapults and other siege weapons are really useful, a few rounds of bombardment will usually remove all of a cities fortifications, so those defending units will lose all of their bonuses. The point I'm trying to make is there's actually more strategy involved than "Hit them with your biggest baddest soldiers and hope the dice rolls are lucky."

I'm hooked. I'm absolutely addicted. This game is definately worthy of the Civ label

phongn · Post by **phongn** » 2005-10-31 02:50pm

I've noticed that units stop levelling after receiving their third promotion - is this a bug? At any rate, a unit of elite cavalry and an artillery train are winning the war on the plains against those barbarian tribes in N. America (I'm playing as Chinese)

Egypt has a single city there but I fully expect to be able to take most of N. America before expanding down south and leapfrog Germany (currently #1)

BlkbrryTheGreat · Post by **BlkbrryTheGreat** » 2005-10-31 02:52pm

phongn wrote:I've noticed that units stop levelling after receiving their third promotion - is this a bug? At any rate, a unit of elite cavalry and an artillery train are winning the war on the plains against those barbarian tribes in N. America (I'm playing as Chinese) Egypt has a single city there but I fully expect to be able to take most of N. America before expanding down south and leapfrog Germany (currently #1)

After a certain point a unit no longer gets exp from killing barbarians.

Stravo · Post by **Stravo** » 2005-10-31 03:01pm

BlkbrryTheGreat wrote:
phongn wrote:I've noticed that units stop levelling after receiving their third promotion - is this a bug? At any rate, a unit of elite cavalry and an artillery train are winning the war on the plains against those barbarian tribes in N. America (I'm playing as Chinese) Egypt has a single city there but I fully expect to be able to take most of N. America before expanding down south and leapfrog Germany (currently #1)
After a certain point a unit no longer gets exp from killing barbarians.

I think that goes in line with the rule in Civ 3 where an elite unit could not generate a Great Leader fighting barbarians.

I find the barbs in this game to be really dangerous. If you don't keep up with your weapons development early game you'll find yourself swarmed by swordsmen and macemen. Scary thought when the best you can field is archers.

I have found a partial solution to fending off barb swarms. Post units on hilltops past the edges of your territory. Barbs cannot spawn within LOS of a unit so if you can illuminate a large swath of terrirotry on the outskirts of your border it deters barbs from spawning and when they do they start out farther from your territory and give you time to mount a counter attack.

It is essential early on to get fast moving units to form a defensive reserve that can rush to face and kill barbs before they get to your cities.

Spriritual seems to be a very potent ability as it was in Civ 3. Even though the anarchy time was cut down to 1 turn (Thank god sometimes I would incur as much as 8 turns of anarchy in Civ 3) still the no turns of anarchy is an edge that helps you tremendously especially early game. The leader that I've had the best success with has been Saladin (spiritual/Philosophical). In my last game I founded all religions and by 1725 was fielding WWII era field armies when the AI was still floundering with musketmen and in one case (poor isolated Elizabeth) was stuck in medieval era.

This game is as addictive as the other Civs and I love it damnit.

KrauserKrauser · Post by **KrauserKrauser** » 2005-10-31 03:27pm

Got it over the weekend. Spent the majority of my Saturday taking George Washington through a mission of world domination. A few of the things I have gleaned from my conquering:

Barbarians are annoying. Much more annoying than in Civ 3. I grew up on Civ 2&3 with weak barbarians that I never really had to worry about. In Civ4, they took my Capital in my first game and annihilated about 4 of my starter cities, before I could build defenses. Not my cup of tea, so they got turned off in my current game.

Artillery is useful. Really, really useful. At this point I am in my modern armor fighting against infantry and riflemen, with the occasional long bowman. I've lost a total of maybe 5-6 tanks in my two faction conquest, and always to the city defenses, not to units randomly on the ground. Spending the turns with bombers, battleships and artillery makes the conquest much much easier, as it should be. Go go Combined Arms!

The growth rate seems slower. In Civ 3 I could grow like a virus with cities everywhere I could stick them. Now, I can still grow relatively quickly but they balanced city growth and settler/worker creation. Basically your excess food production that would be going to city growth is applied to unit prduction when making workers/settlers/workboats. It's kinda wierd, but you get used to it.

I have not yet gone nuclear, though I am really hoping for Alpha Centauri nuke effects and not the piddly nukes from Civ 3.

Overall, it's a good game. I like the new animations that are used for combat and the resources seem to be more prevalent in the game, not the bottle necks like Saltpeter always became for me.

InnocentBystander · Post by **InnocentBystander** » 2005-11-01 07:10pm

Got it yesterday, I also managed 4 hours of sleep, amazingly

It's great
It's really great

The game runs really well too, no serious problems. I get a flash of crazyness during wonder building pop-up, but only for a moment, I still see the whole nice animation.
Some of the advisor screens take literally forever to open up, but not the civic and domestic, so I'm okay with that.

I admit, I miss being able to see the city in the old fashion method. I like being able to zoom into the map though, so things even out pretty well. Combat is very different, and I'm still getting the hang of things, but I love, LOVE, the new tech tree deal. It's great.
Now I play for the rest of the night

Grandmaster Jogurt · Post by **Grandmaster Jogurt** » 2005-11-01 07:50pm

Great Merchants are awesome. By endgame, I was getting them at an incredible rate; at one point I got three in the same number of turns. I had them all set up shop in Berlin, which was already in a very fertile region. By the time I was done with that game, the city had a population surpassing 40 million.

Now that my goal since Civ II has been accomplished, it's time to (finally) start playing on something harder than chieftain.

Enigma · Post by **Enigma** » 2005-11-01 09:20pm

Screw this. I've been looking for about a week trying to get a copy of the damned game and every time they say "it is sold out try tomorrow". Screw it, I instead bought Sid Meier's Pirates and Digimon World 4 for the PS2.

Fuck you EB, Best Buy and Future Shop. And a special FUCK YOU to the incompetent vendor that decided to ship only 1300 copies to all of the Best Buys in Canada. And to screw up ship only a trickle to all of the stores selling it.

InnocentBystander · Post by **InnocentBystander** » 2005-11-01 09:42pm

This is why you gota preorder

Captain tycho · Post by **Captain tycho** » 2005-11-01 09:50pm

YES! I GOT IT TODAY!

I had to wait till I was done with work (its so hard working from your home office and that copy of CivIV is just begging to be played) but I persevered and started playing around 6...and didnt stop for anything until just now. Goddamn, this shit is FUN. The game runs super smooth, load times are nonexistent, and even turns in large 12-civ games don't take very long. However, I'm getting my ass kicked by the AI on Noble difficulty. The English fuckers declared war on my poor Mongolian backwater, and are constantly bombarding me with catapults. I have to devote all of my cities to military production just to hang on.

Stark · Post by **Stark** » 2005-11-01 10:38pm

I want a mod to slow down the years/turn: the early units last for ages, but after you get gunpowder units you go from muskets to rifles to MGs to infantry to marines really quickly, and that's lame.

But hey, I want to be able to build more than one thing at a time, so I'm a heathen...

Grandmaster Jogurt · Post by **Grandmaster Jogurt** » 2005-11-02 02:13am

Stark wrote:I want a mod to slow down the years/turn: the early units last for ages, but after you get gunpowder units you go from muskets to rifles to MGs to infantry to marines really quickly, and that's lame.
[snip]

When you start a custom game, there's an option that, I think, allows you to adjust things like this. I haven't tried it yet though, so I might not be reading it correctly.

Thunderfire · Post by **Thunderfire** » 2005-11-02 02:27am

KrauserKrauser wrote:I have not yet gone nuclear, though I am really hoping for Alpha Centauri nuke effects and not the piddly nukes from Civ 3.

Nukes suck in Civ4. There are away to many defenses against them.

Thunderfire · Post by **Thunderfire** » 2005-11-02 02:32am

The Jester wrote:Do Jaguar Warriors still exist? And do they still kick major arse like they did in Civ3?

Yes they still exist but they are based on swordsman now.

Faram · Post by **Faram** » 2005-11-02 11:10am

Okay I am going to bite the bullet, just ordered Civ IV, I will have it on Friday.

Just hoping I get it to work

Stravo · Post by **Stravo** » 2005-11-02 11:14am

Stark wrote:I want a mod to slow down the years/turn: the early units last for ages, but after you get gunpowder units you go from muskets to rifles to MGs to infantry to marines really quickly, and that's lame.

But hey, I want to be able to build more than one thing at a time, so I'm a heathen...

Try the Epic game setting. Its supposed to slow everything down by increasing build times and research.

Sephirius · Post by **Sephirius** » 2005-11-02 01:27pm

is it just me or are nukes underpowered?

I want to demolish cities in one go, dammit!

Captain tycho · Post by **Captain tycho** » 2005-11-02 01:30pm

Sephirius wrote:is it just me or are nukes underpowered?

I want to demolish cities in one go, dammit!

Yeah, they are, and SDI makes them COMPLETLY useless. Oh well, thats what modding is for.

Enigma · Post by **Enigma** » 2005-11-02 08:09pm

Finally! I got the game. I went to EB again today but this time I wasn't looking for Civ4 but lo and behold! I saw the single available copy and I snatched it.

MWUAHAAHAHAHAHA! The guy at the counter was surprised that there still was a copy available and he had already told a few people that he was out of them.

:):)

But now that I have it I won't be playing it for a while since I am enjoying Sid Meier's Pirates immensely.

InnocentBystander · Post by **InnocentBystander** » 2005-11-02 09:30pm

Okay, so I decided to play india, let's see what this religion thing is all about right?
It might just be bad luck or something, but this is the first game I've played where Barbarians became a factor. In fact; they nearly took Delhi! My culture is great, but they've come at me with such force, I've got 4 cities and it's 1450AD.
It's unbelieveable, and just as the barbarians let up, the Russians come in, they've got a lot of soldiers, but they're completely outclassed by my hardened veterans, and high walls. Still, I just can't expand. Grar.

Does founding religions make you a target for barbarians?

Ubiquitous · Post by **Ubiquitous** » 2005-11-02 09:35pm

Well my copy has finally been dispatched [wasn't it due out here last friday?] and hopefully should arrive by friday. BUT, I'm going to my parents house this friday for the weekend, so no civving until next week at the earliest! I wonder if there will be a patch released by then?

Captain tycho · Post by **Captain tycho** » 2005-11-02 11:23pm

Does anyone know their way around XML? It looks simple, and I can change existing civs, etc, but I would like to create an entirely new one.

InnocentBystander · Post by **InnocentBystander** » 2005-11-03 12:04am

It's real easy, just copy/paste an entire Civ's section of XML to the bottom, and you've got a new civ to work with. The first open tag appears to be <CivilizationInfo>, so just grab from <CivilizationInfo> to </CivilizationInfo>, add it to the bottom of the list, just make sure it's before the </CivilizationInfos>.
Make sense?

Edit:
Wow they weren't kidding when they said this was easy to mod, heh.

Stark · Post by **Stark** » 2005-11-03 12:38am

Ugh. Why is so much of this game so uninspired? There's STILL no food-movement between cities (each city has to support their entire population: dumbest shit ever, even in 200BC), there's no diplomatic leverage (ie give me this tech or I'm cutting off your oil), there's no negotiation over territory (ie selling, seceding or trading territory), there's no proper cooperation or coordination in military or research matters (ie attack here or research this), there's no levels of border control (ie, let settlers and missionaries through but not military units, or everything bar settlers, etc), you can NEVER CANCEL OPEN BORDERS, and I dimly recall needing more than one of a resource to unlock more of that resources units, instead of having 1 oil = massive fleet of supercarriers.

It's fun and all (unless you get stuck on in an area because of deep water/mountains etc and you're totally fucked) but seriously, it could have been so much more.