ZabMilenko
Oct 29, 2005, 07:39 PM
I'm not much of a story writer, but here goes.
When I first opened the Civ4 box, I had a little help from the CivFanatics posts about religion, building, tech tree, etc so I was kind of at an advantage. Installation was buggy and I didn't have TnL so I was flying blind for the game. All of my startup options were default (chieftain, standard, etc) and I chose Catherine of the Russians.
Right away I noticed alot more "first to discover gets..." in the tech tree. I did some mouse-overing and felt that while the AI deals with meditation and masonry, I will fast track to currency, then code of laws right next to it and go with Confucianism.
I found quickly that I was positioned very well compared to India, who were the only neighbors on the continent I started out with. (Later I met the Aztecs, who said so truly "May our peace last until there is no more room to expand").
After Code of Laws, I went back to the older stuff to catch up on those important structures (Obelisk? didnt build any of them). Once I got a few of those I fast-tracked to education and then rocketry.
I finished in 1942 with a Space Race victory and 10,192 score.
Notables: I like how resources and luxuries are traded fairly between Civs. In Civ3 you could give incense and get, say, ivory for 32 gold per turn, world map, left kidney, etc. This game, I got alot more fair trades from India and Rome.
The Aztecs, true to their word, declared war. Because they were on a different continent I didn't bother to mobilize and they never landed troops. It lasted 400 years and not one drop of blood was spilt. India was eternally peaceful with me.
I scored alot of Great Artists and Great Engineers. I used the engineers to "join as super specialist" for weaker cities (with good results) and I used the Great Artists to produce a Great Work in border cities with India. This caused alot of culteral increase. Twice I encircled Indian Cities with my borders and as soon as they were surrounded they culture-flipped. I like this visual representation of culture-flip. I moved a Great Artist and a Great Engineer into the new cities and they turned out almost as productive as the capital (which could mean I suck).
Thing to Try: Rush your tech to computers and build the Internet asap. Then just play normally but only study higher-level techs. This would only work out if you have peaceful neighbors. :-)
One of the things that annoyed me big time was the right-click move thing. I mismoved alot of workers that way in the critical early times. In my opinion, the Alpha-Centauri-style click movement was the best way.
Also, maybe I didn't pay well enough attention, but I couldn't see a way to "sell communications". There is a chance they already met the turn before I tried but hey.
I stayed away from the combat aspect on this first game except to take out a Barbarian villiage. It turned into one of my top 5 cities by the end.
Not bad for my first game.
When I first opened the Civ4 box, I had a little help from the CivFanatics posts about religion, building, tech tree, etc so I was kind of at an advantage. Installation was buggy and I didn't have TnL so I was flying blind for the game. All of my startup options were default (chieftain, standard, etc) and I chose Catherine of the Russians.
Right away I noticed alot more "first to discover gets..." in the tech tree. I did some mouse-overing and felt that while the AI deals with meditation and masonry, I will fast track to currency, then code of laws right next to it and go with Confucianism.
I found quickly that I was positioned very well compared to India, who were the only neighbors on the continent I started out with. (Later I met the Aztecs, who said so truly "May our peace last until there is no more room to expand").
After Code of Laws, I went back to the older stuff to catch up on those important structures (Obelisk? didnt build any of them). Once I got a few of those I fast-tracked to education and then rocketry.
I finished in 1942 with a Space Race victory and 10,192 score.
Notables: I like how resources and luxuries are traded fairly between Civs. In Civ3 you could give incense and get, say, ivory for 32 gold per turn, world map, left kidney, etc. This game, I got alot more fair trades from India and Rome.
The Aztecs, true to their word, declared war. Because they were on a different continent I didn't bother to mobilize and they never landed troops. It lasted 400 years and not one drop of blood was spilt. India was eternally peaceful with me.
I scored alot of Great Artists and Great Engineers. I used the engineers to "join as super specialist" for weaker cities (with good results) and I used the Great Artists to produce a Great Work in border cities with India. This caused alot of culteral increase. Twice I encircled Indian Cities with my borders and as soon as they were surrounded they culture-flipped. I like this visual representation of culture-flip. I moved a Great Artist and a Great Engineer into the new cities and they turned out almost as productive as the capital (which could mean I suck).
Thing to Try: Rush your tech to computers and build the Internet asap. Then just play normally but only study higher-level techs. This would only work out if you have peaceful neighbors. :-)
One of the things that annoyed me big time was the right-click move thing. I mismoved alot of workers that way in the critical early times. In my opinion, the Alpha-Centauri-style click movement was the best way.
Also, maybe I didn't pay well enough attention, but I couldn't see a way to "sell communications". There is a chance they already met the turn before I tried but hey.
I stayed away from the combat aspect on this first game except to take out a Barbarian villiage. It turned into one of my top 5 cities by the end.
Not bad for my first game.