Civ IV

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Well, start locations are typically very good. Usually you have access to at least two special resources in your capital city, and so naturally having two such sites would set you up very nicely.

 

@Aldeth: did you pick the earth 18 scenario? I play custom scenario on that map (I even made a copy that I modified so that I could get other civs and other leaders).

Harbourboy is quite right about this rush thing. I've never used archers to rush but that use of the protective trait is quite astute.

I usually go for warriors and then chariots. If my first wave doesn't succeed then I come up with axemen and keep producing them until they get the city. Of course I'm playing Marathon (Noble) and even a little culture defense is usually not enough to protect a city from my stack of warriors.

If the gap between attackers and defenders isn't too important you can still conquer a city if your troops largely outnumber the AI's.

I never tech for archery if I can get bronze or iron. I'm not sure this is a sound technique but it has worked so far for me.

@Henkie: if I got this right, the map generator makes the tiles around a capital better because it's a starting location.

 

Build you capital on a plains hill for the extra hammer. Use your scout (if you start with one) to identify the lay of the land of the enemy capital. If he starts building a mine on a plains or grassland, you know he's found bronze, so go and pillage it. Hey presto, no axemen. But unless you're playing Emperor level, you should easily be able to build those archers before the enemy has axemen.

And why do you want an enemy capital? Because enemy capitals are always in plum sites with lots of resources. If you're really lucky, it's also a holy city. Also, if an enemy loses its capital early, it will never be any sort of threat to you from then on.

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Great point. An early rush is miles easier on Marathon than it is on Quick.

 

Reading this makes me wish my computer's processor and memory were a bit further up to present standards It runs, just starts to go slow near the end game.

As such I mostly played on my parents PC when I lived there and left the game. The play disc has since been pretty darn scratched up too.

 

I've never paid that much attention to the AI building mines on plains and grassland but that sounds like a very good tip.

I've noticed the AI cheats quite a bit as it seems to be able to see all resources. It will settle a city in the most unlikely locations and later on you may find out that it's actually build on or next to a late game resource like oil or uranium...

@ChickenIsGood: Lowering game settings and playing smaller maps may work (from what I've read, civ IV doesn't take advantage of dual core processors so even with a recent computer and way more RAM than required you can still get some minor lag running really big maps in the late game).

FYI if you have Beyond the Sword, the last patch gets rid of the necessity of using the disc to launch the game.

 

Also, if you just steal the enemy's worker, then he can't hook up the bronze AND you get an extra worker.

 

Thanks, good to know about Beyond the Sword, short on cash right now, but I've been planning to pick up the expansions.

And as for the computer we lowered most the graphic settings so there is just a little lag type stuff going on, very irritable though.

Dual core problems don't matter, this thing is 6 or so years old with only 864mb RAM and and a single core 2.0GH AMD processor.

Home computer handled it like a dream though, and it was beautiful

 

Everytime I'd load Civ IV on my old computer it use to come up with a YOUR GAME DOES NOT MEET THE MINIMUN REQUIREMENTS - IT WILL NOT RUN message. Use to run fine though. Sure, the horses would turn into black blobs, the cows into grey blobs and so forth, but the game itself would be alright.

 

Turns out I have the gold edition, which comes with Warlords. Completely forgot.

Now time to get home sometime soon.

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Alright, I went home, got the disc and have the game installed. The one problem I have is that the whole drive has a terrible rattle with the play disc in the drive. I made an .iso of the file with MagicIso, but I don't know if there is any way to change the default drive of the game to match the virtual one. Any suggestions?

 

No idea. I just know that it is awesome that the BUG mod means I don't have to bother getting the game disc out every again.

 

Alright, thanks. Just found out that I can remove the CD after starting and it will work fine.

Playing my first game with Bismark right now and leading the way on Warlord. Unfortunately I over extended myself in taking over the Arabian lands (forget the leader) and Ragnar decided to go with a surprise attack via boat. Rough.

Next game I'm going to play with Ragnar, since I remember really liking their improved lighthouse and his financial trait.

 

Most games nowadays and from quite a few years back already will recognise in which drive your disk is in. They should too, or it would be a hassle if you have multiple disk drives. The problem is more likely that the game will recognise your iso as being a back up and still won't start the game, but that depends on what kind of copy protection is employed.

And if your disk drive is making such ominous noises, maybe it's time for a new drive? They hardly cost anything nowadays anyway, so that shouldn't be an obstacle to prevent the drive from demolishing your disks.

I don't think that's the BUG mod's doing. As Caradhras mentioned before in this thread, the latest patch for Beyond the Sword disables the disk check.

I tried the rush tactic that you mentioned a while back in an Epic game (on Warlord difficulty), building three warriors right off the bat and marching straight to my nearest neighbour. It went swimmingly, plus I was incredibly lucky that a tribal village gave me a free worker and another some cash to weather the initial hit to my funds with an extra city, which both helped to keep my economy going so that I could go ahead with a bunch of axemen and immortals and march and to the next civ. Actually, a swordsman with a city attack upgrade did most of the work, but whatever. Currently I have 4 GG units in my main combat group (thank you Cyrus (Charismatic and Imperialistic)) and am ploughing my way through another civ.

 

Good for you Henkie!

Nice to see that you're getting back in the game Chicken.

I've finished my earth game after 24 hours (Earth 18 map, Tokugawa, Japan, Marathon speed Noble difficulty). I got a Domination victory for more than 80,000 points (my best score so far). I never stopped fighting one civ after another and ended the game with 87 cities (and I did raze many cities as well), I had so many GG settled that I trained level 5 units (Infantry with combat V!!!) I had more than 200 Infantry units at the end... Overkill.

Now it's time for a first Prince game. Wish me luck!

 

Wait a second - you get an experience point bonus for you units for settling a general in your city? I just thought you got that bonus if you used them to build a miliray academy (or whatever that upgrade is called), but you can only do that once per city.

 

You can produce units faster if you use a GG to build the Academy but you can settle GG before that. Each settled GG gives 2 experience points to your new units produced in that city (you can add the bonus from civics and buildings as well).

Of course you can only build one Military Academy per city but there is no limit to the number of GG that can be settled in a city.

That's why I don't link many of my GG to specific units. I'd rather train numerous units with more experience than have only a few uber unit (that can be lost with some bad luck).

 

Such a huge map only took you 24 hours? A small map on Epic already takes longer for me than that. With so many cities, doesn't your economy grind to a halt? Or do you keep it going by looting one city after another?

I see how settling your generals could work like this too. Later on in the game you could probably just continuously churn out new units to resupply the frontlines and to provide garrisons for taken cities. It would be easier this way to fight a front on multiple fronts too, I reckon. Did you also keep the vassalage and theocracy civs for the extra starting exp?

Good luck with the Prince difficulty!

Just had a serious WTF moment in my current game. I'm playing on a small map with one large continent and a smaller island. Me and 4 other civs started on the larger continent, and one civ (Russia / Stalin) started on the island. I'm currently only a three cities away from wiping the 4th civ off of the main continent, and Russia had managed to settle a few cities of its own on it as well, in places where it didn't seem worthwhile for me to settle a new city.

Here's the WTF moment, though. All of a sudden, I get the pop-up you get when encountering a new civ for the first time. Apparently the native americans suddenly settled somewhere close by. WTF? I'm sure they hadn't been on the map when I started. I'd only just checked the diplomacy scroll too. So I open up the world editor, and what do I see? Suddenly all of Russia's cities on my continent have turned into native american cities and they're now Russia's vassals as well.

Has anyone here encountered something like this before?

Aside from that, I sometimes wish the AI wouldn't be so obvious when cheating. If I demolish some fishing nets on the ocean, they just reappear the next turn, without any workboats needing to be produced first. And civs can apparently build units at an astonishing rate. Or rather, they seem to be able to instantly create a certain amount of units within their cities, without regard to the build time, like us normal mortals do.

I don't really mind - after all, it's just more experience for my units - but it does make me feel that there's little point in beating an AI. They just don't play by the same rules, it seems.

 

I had the same thing in my current game. American civilization appeared out of nowhere in 1910 AD (I had explored the whole world at that point) and they instantly became English vassals. For some reason the game also crashed the next time I ended my turn . Reloaded from an autosave and the same thing happened again. The game hangs to Waiting other civilizations-phase.

 

Seems like you guys have missed quite a big feature of Civ4 namely colonies. Overseas settlements can be granted their freedom and turn into civilizations of their own to cut back on the often massive maintance cost of cities across an ocean. The AI does it all the time and you can as well. It is a bit obscure to figure it out and not at all obvious and my initial reaction was much like yours but it is a game feature open to both AI and player. Go into your city screen and somewhere there is a button where you can choose which cities to grant independence.

 

Indeed we have. Thanks for the explanation, Joacqin.

I actually just finished my game in a domination victory and saw in the playback what had happened (that Stalin had created a colony). I don't really see the big advantage in creating a colony, though. It seems to me that this would only be good option if you'd already conquered an entire island and then turned that into a colony, because you can't regulate their defenses and they start out at the bottom of the tech ladder, it appears, so they'd normally need you to do their defending for them, at least in the early going.

Do any of you ever create colonies? And if so, when is a good situation to do so?

 

Joacqin is right, although I wouldn't use that feature myself it happens with the AI from time to time (BTS only of couse).

Thanks!

I only play Huge maps and Marathon so my games range between 12 to 30 hours depending on the amount of warfare (and whether I turn off domination, conquest takes a looooooong time).

With the right techs and civics you can really keep your economy going. By the way there is nothing wrong in lowering the tech slider. With only 40% science and 40 cities you will tech faster than 100% science and just a handful of cities.

The important thing is to get Currency and Code of Laws before your economy crashes, Currency helps a lot and Courthouses make a huge difference when managing a large empire. Don't forget that Great Merchants can really save you when you need some cash for upgrades and costs.

As far as military units are concerned quality is better than quantity because the costs for maintaining units are the same so I end up sacrificing my worst units before my economy crashes that allows my better units to finish the job. Of course if the economy is sound I tend to upgrade all the units as the AI considers the bulk of your military in order to declare war.

Regarding Vassalage and Theocracy I only use them when they are useful in order to get the extra experience points for a level, otherwise I value Free Speech over Vassalage. Theocracy is good when playing a religious game but if I don't have the Holy City or if there is no united religious block I tend to favour Free Religion as I can avoid religious modifiers and pick the alliances that suit me.

The Earth 18 map is a bit unbalanced though. There are too many civilizations in Europe and that makes for tense choke points. Spain, France and Rome are blocked and if they don't fight it out with their neighbours they don't amount to much. Mali, Inca and Egypt don't have really good starts. China has to be checked or it becomes a giant in Asia. The Aztec civilization is rather isolated but it can catch up late game and usually crushes the American civilization.

In my current game I got a wonderful start with the Roman civilization. I teched for the wheel then Iron Working (Praetorians) and Mysticism (for monuments). I wasn't able to get Stonehenge (Asoka built it before me) but I had a series of successful rushes (first with warriors then axemen and then praetorians). I took Paris, Berlin and Athens then moved on Madrid (which was well defended but didn't have a religion), I hurried to take London because it was crippling Paris with its culture and then I moved my armies east to conquer Moscow and raze the Russian second city before conquering Egypt and Mali. Mali had founded Islam (I picked the choose religion option) so taking it was a bit expensive. My veteran troops then moved on to take Arabia and then Persia. I had some heavy losses in Persia because the culture defence started to make attacking without siege difficult but since I refused to open my borders I got a nice deal. Nobody could settle in Africa and I ended up settling the continent at my leisure.

Around 1000 BC I had 20 cities and a huge tech advantage on the remaining AIs (India, China, Mongolia and Japan). Since I had a huge military they didn't attack me and I started boosting my culture and building wonders. I've built every wonder except Stonehenge so far. I even managed to get the Oracle because the AI obviously didn't tech for Priesthood. Later on I got Democracy from Liberalism (in order to get the Statue of Liberty early) and I founded Judaism, Hinduism and Taoism. I picked Theocracy and Judaism (it was founded in Berlin and I planned to make it my Wall Street city) as a state religion and it spread to the AIs who converted on their own. Once I got the Apostolic Palace I didn't have any problem since I had by far the largest population in the world (I'm trying to get as many specialists as I can without Pacificism). Being way ahead in tech I got all the extra great persons from being the first to discover a technology.

Now the Roman empire covers all of Europe (including England), almost all Africa, the Middle East up to India and Western Russia and the Black Sea. The Great Wall helped a lot since the entire zone is considered one big continent.

That is certainly my best game so far but I don't think I've made the jump to Prince yet because I really got lucky with my early rushes.

Since I don't plan on using State Property I don't think I'll settle in the New World or Australia and since I have such a huge tech advantage I'm either going for space victory or domination. Diplomacy could be an option but without open borders the other leaders are not that friendly (the funny thing is that I keep denying Tokugawa open borders). Once I'm finished with settling Africa I'll go for open borders to boost trade and diplomacy. I didn't plan for culture so that is out. Space victory seems to be the way to go because for domination I'll have to crush the remaining civilizations on my continent (but I already have Infantry and Destroyers and Tanks are almost there).

I currently have more than 20 cities and my science slider is at 100% so it's going rather well and I've never teched that fast playing Marathon. For instance, I didn't even build a musketman, I built a rifleman and upgraded after 2 turns...

I knew that playing Rome on that map would be fun but to be honest I didn't expect it to go so smoothly. In comparison my last game with the Japanese was much harder. Of course it's almost impossible to go for an early rush with Japan, in fact getting a city on the mainland with neighbours like Genghis Khan and Catherine is already a feat.

EDIT: regarding colonies it may be a good option when you are going for certain types of victory and you don't need the extra cities (either because they cost too much or are not well located and don't bring anything of interest to you). It's all part of the vassal system. Your vassal will vote for you for the diplomatic victory and they don't count toward the limit for conquest.

I don't play with the vassals option anymore because I like seeing a civilization getting crushed and the AIs tend to capitulate at every turn so that aspect of the game really frustrates me.