Completed my 0.93 game tonight, with China in a cultural victory on Monarch in 2005 (off by one!)

My plan was simple. Playing China consistently has given me a good feel for where to build and what to research. My plan goes -

1. Move Beijing to the coast
2. build warriors to explore
3. research Fishing, build a work boat
4. when that is completed, Beijing should be size 3. I built a city at Macau first
5. followed by a worker
6. research meditation, build Stonehenge to get culture and Great Prophets
7. moderate expansion (Hangzhou was next) combined with tech research to pick up as many resources as possible.

http://img505.imageshack.us/img505/20/civ4screenshot0000am6.th.jpg (http://img505.imageshack.us/my.php?image=civ4screenshot0000am6.jpg)

This shows my mainland China. I would later expand to Dairen between Korea and China, and Tianjin near where Hanoi would be. Those six cities would form the base of my empire until 1300 or so (I did start a colony in New Guinea, but razed Seoul). I also focused on my economy far more than my religion, and didn't found any religions - all of them were founded in the Middle East except for the two Indian religions. I did get Buddhism fairly early, which is good, because China has big problems with happiness before Calender.

When Greece appeared, they expanded quickly into the Middle East, razing Hattusas and Ninevah and capturing Babel. This didn't seem to stop the Persians when they appeared, and the two quickly balanced halfway into Asia Minor.

Rome got nowhere. Barbarians, which were so anemic in northern China, captured and razed Milan. Then again. A third time. A fourth time. And one, final, fifth time. The Romans declared war on Greece around 50AD, but otherwise were completely pointless, almost certainly because of the barbie focus. (I have also noticed that their city in Sicily is a near-complete waste of time). Barbarians also swept into Persia regularly, razing their northern cities, and getting to Shush and Arbela and burning them.

Meanwhile, I picked up the Oracle and was doing well in tech and money, which is the big problem with China. The Great Prophets I was churning out gave me money, and I usually sent them to Hangzhou, which is very low on production.

Except for a brief Arabia-Persia war in which the Arabs captured the Holy Land, there were no major wars until the 1300's, when I attacked Japan. I razed their Manchurian cities, picked up Ulsan (possibly a mistake) and invaded southern Japan. I captured two cities, including Kyoto, and sued for peace. In 1545, I went to war with the Mongols, captured Karakorum, razed another city or two, and sued for peace.

Meanwhile, in Europe, France and Germany were deadlocked in a bloody war where they traded Chartres back and forth. Germany finally broke through after capturing "Grenoble" (Copenhagen) and by 1600, had captured Paris, leaving France with just one city in Europe.

Colonially, Isabella had circumnavigated the globe in 1405, and would build colonies in the southwest US, including San Francisco, Havana, and the Philippines. The French, meanwhile, focused their efforts on Brazil. England got into Canada and Australia, while Japan had colonies in Indonesia and Singapore. Cyrus had snuck a Persian colony into Tasmania, and I built a city near Seattle.

Around this time, Congresses started ocurring. I lost Tianjin to India, which was particularly annoying, as it had my Forbidden Palace. I lost my Australian colony, and my American colony. In fact, every time a city of mine was called in a Congress, I lost it, as I was the leader for most of the game.

South Africa was surprisingly up for grabs, so I got two decent cities there. I didn't have a strategic plan, but I figured it would be fun to invade Egypt from the south. Never got around to it, but I did get a good city with the Ironworks there. Chinese South Africa - my dragon ships rock!

1640 ushered in the only really violent phase of the game, which lasted until the early 19th century. Germany turned against Russia, and Arabia attacked Persia, followed quickly by Russia and Persia turning on one another. Russia took a city on the Baltic, and had the better of Persia, razing a few cities and taking Central Asia. Persia slowly drove Arabia back, and when India joined in, the Arabs fell.

In 1749, the second phase of the violent era began, when I declared war on Japan to finish the job, and Monty declared war on the fledgeling United States. Monty swept through the US, causing a collapse which finished in, ironically, 1781 when the British took the barbarian city of Baltimore. I conquered mainland Japan, Singapore, and a city in Manchuria, leaving the Japanese with a few islands and a colony in Siberia. While I was mopping up the Japanese, the Mongols declared war on me, so I mopped them up, too.

I now posessed China, Japan, Mongolia, Manchuria, Singapore, New Guinea, southern Siberia, bits of Central Asia (Kazakhstan?) and South Africa. This was to last me to the end of the game.

In 1916, Russia and Germany went back at it for several turns, which ended when the Germans broke into Novgorod. Russia and Persia had sparred in Central Asia, but there were no major breakthroughs.

When I finished the Mongols, I took a look at what I had, and the best way to win. While I was the leader in the Domination categories, I felt like it would have been a pain to take on Russia, the only real option (unless I turned on India). However, I had the top three cities in the culture standings, with Beijing (Oracle, Stonehenge, and Angkor Wat), Hangzhou (Parthenon, National Epic), and Macau (Great Lighthouse, Colossus). I focused on building culture with them - Buddhist Stupas and the Jewish equivalent, and slowly, then increasingly, turned my culture slider up. Beijing hit Legendary in the 70's. The AI didn't really do anything against me, though Monty declared war on me in 2001, and landed cavalry in Japan. No joke! In 2005, both Macau and Hangzhou hit legendary, and I got to see a movie.

The top five were:

1. China (about 2500)
2. England (about 2350) - England and I had been 1-2 for the entire game ever since the Middle Ages.
3. Russia (about 2000)
4. Aztec (a little less than 2000)
5. Mali (virtually tied)

I received a modified score of 2425, and Dan Quayle-level leadership. Ouch.

A few things stood out playing this version:

The mod seems to have regressed in terms of AI wars and Falls of Civilization. The last Civ, the Americans, was the first to go - nothing before 1740. In large part, I suspect that this is due to the AI being less likely to declare war against its friends.

The Open Borders difficulty being raised appears to have helped significantly in terms of where Civs develop, however. I didn't see any civ build a non-contiguous city that they didn't have to use a boat to get to. No Roman cities in Latvia and Ukraine, happily.

Perhaps the biggest flaw in the game, however, was how pointless it felt at the end. I've showed my screenshots of my first four cities, three of which went on to win me the game. Combine that with Tianjin to get stone and a few other resources, and Dairen, which hit size 24(!) by the Middle Ages, and those six cities probably would have kept me strong enough to win. I was never threatened by a belligerent power or barbarians - I doubt that mainland China ever had anyone attack its cities, let alone attack with a chance to win! It was probably necessary to sweep the Japanese out of Korea and Manchuria, and probably to take Karakorum from the Mongols, but other than that, my wars were mostly undertaken because I could.

However, by expanding as I did, I probably caused huge amounts of corruption to cripple my economy, and the only real setback I had, India being voted Tianjin, probably would have been avoided had I not been the game's leader. My colonies were albatrosses, holding me back.

THE CONGRESS

The Congress system is generally a good idea, but I feel it needs more help. In general, I think it needs to arise dynamically. That's tough to figure out, and worth its own thread. Specific suggestions I have include:

Allow Culture flips on Congress-changed civs. Egypt lost two cities to Rome and France, which quickly shrunk to size 1 and showed up as tiny, constantly rebelling cities on the map. Completely, utterly pointless.

Have more going on in the AI process than "Is the civ too big?" Congresses felt far too deterministic. If the civ with the city under question was much bigger than the demanding civ, the city would switch.

One way to go about this would be to have a diplomatic penalty for voting against a civ. -1 for every time you vote against someone. This would make abstentians relevant, cause more wars, and give the AI a reason not to always vote against the world leader, because he might kick its ass.

I've already recommended that the Congress be based on a majority, rather than simple numbers.

I like the suggestion to opt out of Congresses, so that they can be rejected. Superpowers going their own way, regardless of world governing bodies, is a long and storied tradition, made popular once again by the United States today.

Even better than that is the suggestion for votes to be traded, combined with knowledge the turn before of when the Congress will appear. This will allow the player to look at which cities are available, as well, which is important sometimes when dealing with randomly named colonial possessions.

This again shows that the "weak USA" problem is still evident :(

I have found that when I play as America I am strong. But AI driven America is still weak. Much also depends on the condition of the land in 1605. If the Europeans have already established cities, the task is more difficult than if the land is free of emcumberance.

Great write up Arkaeyn! China is a civ I have never played all the way through. I have either gotten bored due to being too big, or too frustrated by barbarians. The problem I have also run into is building too many cities.

Also the AI Rome never gets to build a respectable empire...

I have found that when I play as America I am strong. But AI driven America is still weak. Much also depends on the condition of the land in 1605. If the Europeans have already established cities, the task is more difficult than if the land is free of emcumberance.

Great write up Arkaeyn! China is a civ I have never played all the way through. I have either gotten bored due to being too big, or too frustrated by barbarians. The problem I have also run into is building too many cities.
What about an increase of the flip area? Or, instead, a second flip" of the cities in the west around 1800?

the usa wasn't particularly weak in mine. it would normally take english and french colonies (i was spain) and be dominating force in north america, along side my san diego and san francisco on the west coast.

Perhaps we should start a thread on the USA, and other civs in need of balancing. This is the only 0.93 game I've played to the Americans, so I'm not sure how normal it is. In my opinion, every Civ should be about 50/50 to survive for a while.

Barak, yeah, it's easy to look at China and plan 6, 8, even 10 good-looking cities. But expansion HAS to be done slowly and connected with tech advances - get 5 or 6 cities when you get Currency, etc. As a general rule, when picking my techs, I picked the one which would get me more money sooner. I do think that Grocers and Banks appear a little too close to one another, but by and large, this strategy seemed to work. It was only in the 20th century that I fell significantly behind in the tech race.

second message with analysis, especially on the Congress system, is updated.

So it CAN be done! I'm a builder (I build things), so it's hard to not just plop down 6 cities right away, even though I know no one else will. Think I'll give China another shot.

SilverKnight

A shorter version of this paragraph would fit a strategy guide for China to put on the site

I could do this as a strategy guide easily, but I'd rather it not be so easy. Barbarians are easy to deal with if you but an Axeman halfway between Luoyang and Lhasa, and a Spearman or north and west of Beijing. You KNOW India won't declare war, and you KNOW Japan and Mongolia will. Other than that - it's just building the right amount of cities to balance your economy. So I'm hoping randomness gets built in to make China less easy.

Then again, maybe China is only easy for me because I start every single game with them. :-)

Yes, that could be a factor. ;)

Had a dream I played China and conquered Mongolia... :p I'll try China out next.

SilverKnight

I made another game on 093 - going straigth to America. English Baltimore very close to Washington has not flipped. I had no other choice than declare war on Vicky and raze this city. It was very easy. Then I founded New Orleans, Chicago, Sioux Falls (?!) and Seattle - utilising all settlers given at start. There was a lot of issues with Congresses - I had to reload :blush: maybe 6 times a save before the Congress for not loosing New Orleans to Japan :eek: . Needless to say Japanese culture in this city was 0%. Btw some mechanism could be implemented that culture is not lost immediately - when I re-conquer a city my culture should remain there - lost proportionally to time the city was not mine. (My dream :mischief: )
I declared war immediately and got beck New Orleans next turn with 22 population of Japanese :cry: :aargh: and no cultural buildings.

Nobody declared war on me. In XX century I attacked Monty.

The biggest fun is that things went differently than during my previous game :D

Persia previously very powerful - this time was destroyed by barbs even before Arabia started.
In XX Egypt was eliminated by barbs :eek: having war with Arabia and Greece.
England and Spain quite strong but Spain colonized only Argentina in whole Latin Americe. Other colonies taken back by Inca and Aztec.
World leader is Germany after conquering France and Russia (both eliminated). They declared war on me when I invaded Aztec. They only sent some navy and I sent them some nukes :evil:
Rome has only Carthage and Sicilly but still alive.
India, China and Japan are again at the bottom although nothing bad happened to them. They all occupy the area they should have. Maybe they should be tuned up?

This is [offtopic], but I notice that Sicily is always so USELESS for Rome; they have low production, and once they have a Lighthouse and maybe Granary it gets better, but it's frustrating to pay for such a crappy city from early on. Just a gripe, and the more I think about it, the more it seems ok. Still, does anyone else have any thoughts on this?

SilverKnight

That city stinks, I agree wholeheartedly.

Yeah, me too.

This is [offtopic], but I notice that Sicily is always so USELESS for Rome; they have low production, and once they have a Lighthouse and maybe Granary it gets better, but it's frustrating to pay for such a crappy city from early on. Just a gripe, and the more I think about it, the more it seems ok. Still, does anyone else have any thoughts on this?

SilverKnight


I actually think that the whole "tile system" is really outdated.
It is fine if you have the sort of additude that Civ is a GAME like chess or risk as opposed to a SIMULATOR, but these days I think more people would like it be more of a simulator (not NECESSARILY a historic simulator but a Civilization simularor that can handle historic simulation).

Why can you not TRANSPORT food or raw goods to places where there is demand and industry? Sicily was in fact a bread basket and not an industrial area, but it sent food to Rome. England did not become the top manufacturing nation based on what it can do with it "tiles" but because it imported raw goods from other nations and manufactured them in its factories.

The "working tile" system is what is really holding CIV back from a hardcore strategy game player point of view.

I wish they would make an Advanced CIV game for those who would like it. It would be tough to make on the design and AI side of things but would not have to have very good graphics or sound, or could just use those from the most recent mainstream CIV game. Then they could focuss on making regular CIV a FUN game (with little realism) and ADV.CIV would be more realistic and fun for those who like realism.

Tiles are pretty fundamentally "Civilization". I doubt you'll ever see them get rid of it.

MrThing, did you ever play Imperialism 1 or 2? those both involved the logistics of shipping food around your empire. Fantastic strategy games, but very, very different from Civ.

MrThing, did you ever play Imperialism 1 or 2? those both involved the logistics of shipping food around your empire. Fantastic strategy games, but very, very different from Civ.


I have indeed played the first Imperialism (have not been able to get a hold of a copy of the sequal) and liked that whole aspect of it.

What I would really like to see is a game that combines the best of both. That would really be the ultimate strategy game as far as I'm concerned.

I don´t think the problem is "tiles" exactly, but that an empire´s might depends on them. That may work with the ancient eras, but it fails to represent the power of modern empires.

Perhaps there can be a late game tech or civic that would change it so that a specialist only costs a city 1 food to feed.

That´s not a bad idea! Right now there is very little food in the game, especially at later stages.

To be more realistic I would rather introduce techs increasing food production - not consumption. Currently there is only one - being I think Biology and affects only farms.
In history food production per hectar increased enormously throughout the ages.

To be more realistic I would rather introduce techs increasing food production - not consumption. Currently there is only one - being I think Biology and affects only farms.
In history food production per hectar increased enormously throughout the ages.

The funny thing is that the health upper limit is raised a lot in the latter stages, but you never have enough food to reach it. A level 20 city is a miracle!

This was done in TETurkhan's PTW map, increased food to allow for historically accurate demographics. The model was remarkably simple compared to the effect it had on population growth, a near exponential increase in later stages of the game. As for gameplay, well, it basically made your empire run by specialists, meaning big civs like China had a HUGE edge. I like the way it's done now.

Although the increase of food production in the late game (ala Biology) wouldn't be a bad thing at all.

SilverKnight

Finished my China 093 game today, winning a cultural victory in 1908 (monarch).
I didnt plan for a cultural from the start, played a more "standard" game up until 1700'ish when I started to gear up for cultural.

Some comments etc from this game.

Civilizations destroyed:
Japan, by me, after they foolishly declared war when I took Christianity (I didnt found any religions btw) as state religion.

Mongolia, by me, probably 30-40 turns or so after they were born. One of my cities flipped on their creation, and I let it go, since I was still busy with Japan, but declared on Mongolia as soon as Japan was defeated.

France, pushed out of Europe by the Germans, after I bribed the French to help me in the war against Germany (who sent a whole of three troops to my territory). They survived a while on their colonies, then fell to barbarians around 1880.

Arabia was (as usual) wiped out by the Persians.

Spain was kicked out of Europe by the Russians, after I paid the Russians to help me in my war against Spain, who never sent a single unit to my territory, I did take their 2 towns in the Phillipines, razed them and built one of my own there after they declared war.

The Americas was fairly quiet, but Monty declared war on the US around 1900, after loosing Reno to the Americans in a congress.

NOBODY had colonized South Africa, it was all empty, only the French capital on Madagaskar, else nothing.

I'm playing as the Persians (pre-.93 I think) and I'm trying to see how much I can conquer. I've so far destroyed (in order) India, Arabs, Egypt, & China. The Greeks destroyed the Germans and the Romans/Greeks/French destroyed the Mali.

So now I've got a swath from east africa to china. I'm building up an army to go after the Greeks. Currently the Greeks have the biggest army and a lot of friends, but I've got a tech & production edge. If that goes successfully I think I'll just roll up the rest of Europe.

India fell to Immortals & Horse Archers
Arabs fell to Elephants
Egypt fell to Knights & Macemen
China fell to Canon & Cavalry
Greece will fall (hopefully) to Infantry

I have the holy city for every religion now, and they are definitely needed to keep my economy going. I'm running at like 60% science, but I'm still the tech leader. Too bad Persia is getting nerfed in 96 :(

Just wanted to report my .093 game as I did run into a bug. Hopefully its already been fixed. Played as Persia up to first World Congress (ca. 1725). Was the leader at the time by about 450 points. I also noticed that everyone wanted the American cities. I think all but one American city was requested. Don't think any switched. Of all the cities people wanted, only three switched. Two of mine were requested, neither were central cities. One was a conquered arabian city which the egyptians won in votes, and I was happy to see go. The other was a city I founded in Russian territory that they did NOT get in the vote! Other flips were reasonable because they were close to the asking civ. My list of options was kind of random though. Of course I didn't stand a chance of getting a city since I was the world leader.
Anyway, the major bug occurred after the congress was finished. Afterwards I did not have any controls of the game. I could move about the world map but could not select anything or zoom in or out. The control panel at the bottom was blank. Clicking on things like the diplomacy screen options did nothing. ESC did not bring up the game menu. CTRL-S DID bring up the save menu. So I saved it and then closed the game window. I'll check and see if the save is playable tonight when I get home. Just wondered if anyone else ran into this problem in .093.

Loaded from the save I made when the game locked up, and it worked fine. I'll move on to .96 and see if it happens there.

Sicily is always so USELESS for Rome; they have low production, and once they have a Lighthouse and maybe Granary it gets better, but it's frustrating to pay for such a crappy city from early on.

hey what else would you expect from Sicily? :p