Good mods for civilization 4? Thoughts on civilization 5?

[Stofsk]

SMAC had a system where if you research a new development in weapons or defence technology, you would get notified and told you can upgrade all your units up to the new standard at a cost of [whatever] minerals. You click 'yes', pay the cost, and then your forces are upgraded - and all without having to do anything more involved than that.

[RedImperator]

I remember some internet post somewhere where they expained that the rationale for such ludicrous situations as pikemen killing tanks was purely game-balanced based, to avoid the first player to build a tank plowing through the opponent's armies.

I always rationalized it as there being transitional troops mixed in, instead of units magically changing from pikemen to marines, so those musketeers might actually carry around a few AT grenades to help them take on the tank or something.

Of course that doesn't help when my awesome plasma hover supersdestroyer is shot down by a black powder cannon, but oh well.

I find that hard to believe considering how late game tanks were. In Civ II, it was much easier to get your infantry upgraded to the "infantry" unit than it was to get your cavalry up to "tanks" (and "infantry" en masse were good enough tank stoppers that I usually didn't bother upgrading defensive stacks to "mechanized infantry"). If someone's so far behind that he's still fielding musketeers or pikemen when someone else has tanks, he deserves to lose anyway.

[Temujin]

I played some Civ 4 again in light of this thread, and the thing that bothers me the most about it is the one city builds one thing mentality. Like, for 75 years, all my captial city did was build a fucking market. Really? It'd be way cool if they implemented a system inspired by SoaSE where you don't build specific improvements, you focus efforts in specific areas, i.e. civilian infrastructure, logistics and so on.

The other thing I hate is how if you don't go around and make sure every unit is upgraded to your latest tech, they'll just sit around being pikemen into the 21st century. Some sort of organic transition where units would upgrade automatically, phasing out the old and bringing in the new over several turns even without prompting it.

Hmm. Also, I know the time-compressed early years are necessary to make te game have a bearable pace, but it's always bothered me that it would take 800 years for my swordsmen to march from my country to my neighbour and siege one of their cities. That's some fucking dedication.

Yeah, Civ can have some serious SOD issues if pay enough attention.

[Enigma]

I'd love it if they re-introduced the resource colonizing. They had it in Civ3 but took it out for Civ4.

I do know that they've taken out espionage from Civ5, which is fine by me since I didn't see much in the way of benefits from using spies.

I'd also like it if they implemented the suggestion I made earlier about the mismatched combat.

[MKSheppard]

I'd love it if they re-introduced the resource colonizing. They had it in Civ3 but took it out for Civ4.

FUCK YOU FUCK YOU DIE IN A FIRE.

Resources are one of the worst ideas ever introduced. Civ 3's implemenation was retarded. Resources like Iron, Wood, Horses, Coal, were rare as fuck -- and you needed them to build units -- despite these things being some of the most goddamn common things in the world -- and the horse resource made NO sense whatsoever -- since you could corral some horses and set up a captive breeding program.

[Temujin]

I'd love it if they re-introduced the resource colonizing. They had it in Civ3 but took it out for Civ4.

FUCK YOU FUCK YOU DIE IN A FIRE.

Resources are one of the worst ideas ever introduced. Civ 3's implemenation was retarded. Resources like Iron, Wood, Horses, Coal, were rare as fuck -- and you needed them to build units -- despite these things being some of the most goddamn common things in the world -- and the horse resource made NO sense whatsoever -- since you could corral some horses and set up a captive breeding program.

Resources aren't in themselves a bad idea, but as usual their execution sucked, as your horse example demonstrates. It could have been done right, but Sid and company are just a bunch of dumb asses. Its not like they haven't gotten plenty of feedback over the years, so there's no excuse for them not getting it right after all this time.

[Samuel]

Er, Shep, resource colonizing means you can get resources outside your cultural borders. Unless you are attacking the concept in which case I'm going to have to agree.

Especially the fish resource. Damn, I wonder how my fisherman are producing food on all the other tiles? The only way any of the organic resources make sense is that it is a location with genetically different breeds of rice/wheat/etc. Of course, the real reason is just to encourage trade and expansion. That only works with corporations though and it makes it a zero sum game which is extremely unrealistic. Maybe if they made it so the benefits for a corporation were determined by the resources the HQ was recieving instead of each individual city, it would make cooperation alot more important. Instead if you spread a corporation to another civilization they compete with you for the same resource.

(Note- the earlier suggestion about leaking tech from open borders is from Civilization 4 total realism. It is only updated to warlords though.) I have another idea- you could make certain units get stronger when you research certain technologies (like calvary with stirrups) it keeps the need for upgrading down and helps spread out essential technology.

I played some Civ 4 again in light of this thread, and the thing that bothers me the most about it is the one city builds one thing mentality. Like, for 75 years, all my captial city did was build a fucking market. Really? It'd be way cool if they implemented a system inspired by SoaSE where you don't build specific improvements, you focus efforts in specific areas, i.e. civilian infrastructure, logistics and so on.

It is effectively just infrastructure. It scales with the city size, provides a set bonus- the only reason it is a single building is tradition and so they can have the building show up on the map.

Hmm. Also, I know the time-compressed early years are necessary to make te game have a bearable pace, but it's always bothered me that it would take 800 years for my swordsmen to march from my country to my neighbour and siege one of their cities. That's some fucking dedication.

It is only that way because they want the game to reflect history. The problem is you never go through dark ages or plagues and are always pushing foward science and industrial progress. They should either add more techs and options to the early years or admit that you would go through them alot faster than civilizations went through them historically.

Check the thing you get when you unzip it (it will be a folder with a .ini file inside)/
Copy the entire folder, not just the contents into your ...\Civlisation4\BeyondTheSword\Mods directory and play.

I did that and it isn't working. I unzipped and saved to the desktop and then copied the whole folder in civilization 4 mods. What am I screwing up?

[Stark]

The awful use of time is NOT to make the game 'reflect history'. In the 1000 years it takes you to build a granary regional powers dominated, flourished and were conquered. Almost nothing about Civ has anything to do with history AT ALL.

[Stofsk]

The awful use of time is NOT to make the game 'reflect history'. In the 1000 years it takes you to build a granary regional powers dominated, flourished and were conquered. Almost nothing about Civ has anything to do with history AT ALL.

Well... yeah. This should be obvious. I mean, I can start a game and play as America with Lincoln as my leader... from the stone age. Then take America from stone age to nuclear age - spanning how many thousands of years? lolz

Adam's example of 'lol my swordsmen army marched for a century to invade a neighbouring country' is one of Civ's bullshit... things that makes fuck all sense. You kinda have to roll with it or else stop playing. I would rather a turn = a year regardless of what 'era' you're in, but then I don't work for Firaxis.

[Samuel]

The awful use of time is NOT to make the game 'reflect history'. In the 1000 years it takes you to build a granary regional powers dominated, flourished and were conquered. Almost nothing about Civ has anything to do with history AT ALL.

By "reflect history" I mean have the end of the game take place in the modern era (1900s-2000s). They do have the game set on BC/AD, although it makes even less sense in Civ 4 (when you can found Christianity).

[Stark]

Well... yeah. This should be obvious. I mean, I can start a game and play as America with Lincoln as my leader... from the stone age. Then take America from stone age to nuclear age - spanning how many thousands of years? lolz

Adam's example of 'lol my swordsmen army marched for a century to invade a neighbouring country' is one of Civ's bullshit... things that makes fuck all sense. You kinda have to roll with it or else stop playing. I would rather a turn = a year regardless of what 'era' you're in, but then I don't work for Firaxis.

There's a reason the Sid Meier Is Stupid games that are better are limited in scope; Col and AC stay within a similar context for their run, so it's less objectionable that Cortez is still on your council 200 years later.

What's sad is that simply by having a sliding scale (even saying xyz per year, turn = abc years) means time would flow fast (for ignorant Americans who think nothing happened until 400BC) but things would happen at a normal rate. There are already mechanics to make production massively faster lategame through technology.

But any game (like Sid Meier games) where exploration and city-spam is so easy will never be remotely historical. It's just window dressing on '+1 combat' to make people feel like 'great rulers' by sploiting the broken tech trees. Can't change it or idiots like Purple will cry.

[Purple]

I did that and it isn't working. I unzipped and saved to the desktop and then copied the whole folder in civilization 4 mods. What am I screwing up?

There are several things that could be at fault.

First, check if you copied it right.
Watch out that the unziping did not create a second folder.
Usually mods already come packed in their own folder. So if you download a mod named folder1.zip you will get something like this: folder1/folder1/the mod files.
You only need that internal folder, the one with the mod files in it, not both.

Second, check if you patched Civ to 3.19.
The auto patch system with civ tends to be defective so you might want to download the newest patch and apply it manual. You should be able to find it on the forum.

These are the most common things that bug people when playing mods.

[Iosef Cross]

Civilization games? puff...

Nothing beats the good old MoO2!

[Stark]

Except games with AI, functional diplomacy, balanced start options, that sort of thing?

PS relevance = 0.

[Lief]

Nothing beats the good old MoO2!

Damn you, I am now going to have to find this so I can play it again

On topic, I loved all civ games, haven't tried any mods for civ4 though (except the official releases), and haven't got around to getting civ5 yet, all I know is it has hexagons!!

[CaptainChewbacca]

I'd like it if they made corporations easier. I've played Civ IV for years, and I've never ONCE been able to build a corporation before I've got victory conditions all-but-locked.

[Superman]

I'm just hoping they at least put some effort into improving city management. It shouldn't be hard, especially since it's mostly consisted of moving around the little wheat piles, turning people into specialists, and inevitably causing citywide starvation.

[Stofsk]

I'm just hoping they at least put some effort into improving city management. It shouldn't be hard, especially since it's mostly consisted of moving around the little wheat piles, turning people into specialists, and inevitably causing citywide starvation.

Nothing wrong with simulating gross civic mismanagement. It's not like in real life people don't know what the fuck they're doing when they're running their city into the ground.

[Samuel]

Nothing beats the good old MoO2!

Damn you, I am now going to have to find this so I can play it again

On topic, I loved all civ games, haven't tried any mods for civ4 though (except the official releases), and haven't got around to getting civ5 yet, all I know is it has hexagons!!

http://www.gog.com/en/gamecard/master_of_orion_1_2

Also, a note on mods- if you play Fall From Heaven you will grow to hate peaks. Seriously, whose idea was it to make impassible and useless terrain for civilization 4? They have them everywhere so you can have chokepoints and for that reason alone I'm glad Civ 4 is going to use hexagons.

[Vehrec]

I'd like it if they made corporations easier. I've played Civ IV for years, and I've never ONCE been able to build a corporation before I've got victory conditions all-but-locked.

I take it you seldom try for a Space Race win? I mean, we can't play AC if people don't build a colony ship to go there!

[CaptainChewbacca]

I'd usually get a cultural victory while going for a space race win.

[Gramzamber]

Nothing beats the good old MoO2!

Damn you, I am now going to have to find this so I can play it again

On topic, I loved all civ games, haven't tried any mods for civ4 though (except the official releases), and haven't got around to getting civ5 yet, all I know is it has hexagons!!

http://www.gog.com/en/gamecard/master_of_orion_1_2

Also, a note on mods- if you play Fall From Heaven you will grow to hate peaks. Seriously, whose idea was it to make impassible and useless terrain for civilization 4? They have them everywhere so you can have chokepoints and for that reason alone I'm glad Civ 4 is going to use hexagons.

Except for the bastard dwarves in FFH2 who can move over mountains.
Had a dwarven civ next to me between a valley of peaks, they could invade all they wanted and I could just sit there and take it.
Well at least till I built airships and clobbered them (I was playing the steampunk civ in the Orbis addon). Fun times.

[Samuel]

The game is designed to be unbalanced- I don't mind because it makes things interesting and insane. The exception is the Scions in Orbis who are so unbalanced it isn't funny.

Is it just me or are the modmods unstable? Wildmana and Rise from Erubus keep on going crazy on me. Of course that is when the barbarians aren't exterminating everyone in RfE.

[Xenophon13]

One thing I love about Civ 4 is how you inevitably build up a huge infrastructure, and then in the late game global warming starts destroying it.

Another Question, is the final frontier mod worth playing, or should I just play Gal Civ 2

[Samuel]

The final frontier mod can't compare to Gal Civ 2. And by that I mean it sucks horribly in comparison. The AI in GC2 can actually put up a decent fight without cheating, it has less tedious micro management, the tech tree makes more sense, what you need to do is more straight forward, there are things to prevent snowballing effects and running away with the game...

The modmod final frontier plus makes it better, but it still isn't on the same level as GC2. I don't buy games from star dock any more, but if you are thinking of using FF as a fix for your desire for space strategy, get galactic civilizations instead.