Handy 22 Always War C4 Noble

Did you go to Options, Graphics and select No Combat Zoom? That stops the animation for the fights. Then you can leave on the 3 member units animation.


I like that as it is easy to see how much damage was done, without the health bar.

I played last night but the forums went down.

Not that much happened.

We formed a city in the north.

I took a small detour for Drama and Monotheism, because they were fast to get and because I like the cheap theatres. Otherwise am working toward optics.

changed civics to organized religion and caste system. That is more expensive, but we can have have specialists when we need them. We may want to make a few.

I agree that Civ4 is less suited to AW compared to Civ 3. This comes as no suprise to me. However, there is a lot to explore that is new which is interesting in its own right - I think we will have fun exploring it. I also don't think we will be dropping playing Civ3 for Civ4 any time soon.

Unfortunately, this game has little to do with AW at the moment.

Greebley said:

I played last night but the forums went down.

Unfortunately, this game has little to do with AW at the moment.

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Sorry to butt in again, but I have enjoyed all the SG's you all played in III, at least the ones I read.

If you want to have AWN play like AW, turn on raging barbs. That made my game almost too lively. Otherwise you may have a fair distance to the next civs and then it will be a big wait for them to show up.

Of course when they do, it will put pressure on you to protect your workers and improvements, let alone your towns. Just be sure to not have very many turns from the time you start dealing with barb axes and the time you clear their ability to spawn.

Axemen are tough even for Horse Archers. I was counting on the AI to settle enough to forestall so many barbs, but war must have made them slower to expand.

I'm back and have got it or more accurately will get it tonight. I must say that I find civIV much more fun, but then again I did not play that much AW. Civ III had become very formulaic. The ability to get 30 or 40:1 kill ratios (and then complaining when a knight loses t0 a 1 HP spearman after killing 100) when at the same tech level or even behind is a sign to me that something was broken and really made it rather boring just slogging through 100s of units to an almost certain win. I think there is a ton of strategy to explore in this game for AW as well as for the other win conditions. I think your enjoyment of civIV is inversely related to how bored you were with civIII. I find the civIV AI greatly improved, the possibility for exploits almost eliminated (I'm sure we will eventually find some) and the balance and strategic considerations also much improved. It does have a very different feel but for me at least that is part of the fun.

If you want to have AWN play like AW, turn on raging barbs

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No thanks for me, I am usually quite annoyed with too many barbs, some more thyey give units promotions until exp10 only.
I rather have more AI's on the same continent.

Welcome back Mark.
Thanks for the encouraging and positive words about C4. I still miss armies though - they were so much fun.

Roster
1. Greebley - [gone 11-18 to 11-28]
2. Mark1031 - has it
3. Handy
4. ThERat -

5. Sir Bugsy - game not running, laptop in the trashbin
6. Obormot - waiting for the patch

lurker's comment: The lack of a monarchy govt. equal in Civ4 has me with ZERO interest in trying AW. AW with WW just plain sucks.

I do understand some of the negative comments on Civ4. Some of my fears have come true in that it would get obsessed with being "pretty". I will take ugly any day of the week if it is more fun.

As for going back to Civ3, it won't happen for me as I already threw the CD in the trash as the burnout was 100%.

LKendter said:

lurker's comment: The lack of a monarchy govt. equal in Civ4 has me with ZERO interest in trying AW. AW with WW just plain sucks.

I do understand some of the negative comments on Civ4. Some of my fears have come true in that it would get obsessed with being "pretty". I will take ugly any day of the week if it is more fun.

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lurker's comment:

I am wondering why none of the beta testers caught this WW issue? Heck, the game even has an AW option yet it missed this basic flaw???

I never criticized beta testers before, but I am afraid this one IS a beta tester problem. I'd be happy to be corrected.

On a side note, anyone knows how OCC plays in CIV4? Would it be able to achieve cultural victory which requires 3 cities? Please don't let me know that it has the same irony as AW.

AW with WW just plain sucks.

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I have to agree with this. Instead of fighting you wind up playing an AW builder's game where you build jails and temples and theaters and anything else to keep the sheeple happy, while you garrison an insane amount of unit in your cities. It makes the game a lot longer and less fun IMHO.

AW on a duel map is more fun than a standard map.

As for going back to Civ3, it won't happen for me as I already threw the CD in the trash as the burnout was 100%.

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Not burned out yet, but getting a little warm.

I am not sure why the major concern about WW. It is not a killer as far as I can tell.
I am able to keep on fighting and it is 1260AD. Remember you lose citizens to unhappiness, but if have enough food it is not an issue.

I am not sure about +happiness as I am not counting what I have, but it seems that the AI is really struggling with improvements.

I do not know if the barbs were hurting them or not, but did the best I cold to get sentries out to stop them from respawing. I doubt they did.

It has been much like AWD (C3C) in that you have so many chances to get hurt and cannot always cover all bases. I have a lot of land now and had to cut way back at times on research, but used GP to get some techs and massive chops for wonders. Ind and Agg traits help for extra promotions and hammers.

It really freaks me out if someone releases a game with AW and no suitable government. This has to be patched. Beta testers did not play AW of course.

microbe, I think OCC plays with 3 city culture win, if that's correct it leaves you with conquest (in Civ4 with 1 city ), so UN and AC is possible, yucks

I think it depends on how bad AW gets. Does anyone know what the Max WW is? If you need only a few more happiness it is not a big deal - If you get double or more normal unhappiness, then it is a problem.

microbe said:

I am wondering why none of the beta testers caught this WW issue? Heck, the game even has an AW option yet it missed this basic flaw???

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Runaway speculation in progress. I don't mean only microbe and ThERat, but the thread itself.

First, a question:

* Why did you guys launch an AW game as your first event? Didn't you expect to need to learn a bit more about Civ4 to be successful here?


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I posted this in the general forum, in the "fun for warmongers" thread. I'm reposting it here. It's in reply to something Handy900 wrote.

handy900 said:

8. What can you say about a game where AW is a custom selection but there is no government suitable for AW. I guess there were no beta testers who liked to play AW.

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What an odd thing to say.

Civ3 AW is what it was because the AI was completely incapable of playing under those conditions. That it happened to be fun was just a matter of luck.

In Civ4, the AI is no longer SLAVE-CHAINED to *your* choices. Just because you declare war does not force the AI to train units and throw them at you in an endless trickle (the way it works in Civ3).

Now the AI will actually ignore you, sometimes, and do its thing.

Like, "Oh yeah? You and what army? Let me know when you get serious. Maybe we'll bother with your sorry self when you're worthy of our attention." And on they go with their own interests.

When they do decide to invade, they'll actually try to measure what they need to be successful, and not move until they think they can gain something from it.


The new Always War is harder. The enemy is more thinking -- or at least, we put a lot more thought in to how it should behave. That doesn't mean it won't do stupid things, but at least now it tries to be smart. The Civ3 AI in an Always War situation was absolutely and unequivocally brain dead.

You will not get the exact same (old) flavor of gameplay out of Civ4 AW, but I was there with Arathorn for the very first AW game. If you dislike Civ4 AW, you can blame me straight away. It's my responsibility. Adding AW to Civ4 was my idea, and the upgrades to the AI to make it a smarter AW opponent were done at my urging -- within the limits of our resources.

If you don't think we did good work, that's your call. The Civ3 AI and its ready supply of beeline suicide units will always be there waiting for you if that is what you enjoy the most.


Civ3 AW is something that came together by accident. It flew in the face of how the AI was designed and which assumptions were ingrained in to its behaviors. Civ3 AW, to the extent that it was fun, was fun by the grace of God alone, because there was no design intent behind it.

Now in Civ4, we've tried to learn the lessons of Civ3, including Civ3 AW, and carry the game (and especially the AI) to the next level.

If after a fair outing of both, you should still prefer the Civ3 version, then you are (in effect) declaring that successful game design is more a matter of luck than intent or analysis or evolution. ... The jury is still out, and will be for some time yet, but I'm not a big believer in the power of luck. Destiny makes its own luck. Fortune favors the bold.
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Now a few tips.

* War Weariness only builds when you fight outside your own borders.

* By the time you can fund a high number of cities, you'll be closing in on the ability to negate the War Anger.

* Don't overexpand. Expansion is something that you will have to manage through the course of the game. This includes city captures.

* The thing with Jails not covering the last 25% is a bug. I know the reasons why this bug slipped by (and it's my fault) but I can't discuss them. AW had more impact on Civ4 as a whole than you'll ever know, but this was one of my pet concepts and I had also several other (higher priority) responsibilities.

* Even assuming the Jails are fixed to work correctly, you will have to keep your WW within survivable ranges until you can negate it in the late game.

* You may want to prioritize building the Pyramids. (Early access to Police State).

* Get used to dealing with pillagers. Cutting off your resources and undercutting your economy is the smartest thing the AI can do to hurt you, in the strategic sense.


This isn't Civ3 AW, and I expect it may take some of you longer to adapt than others. Some of you may not like fighting less-stupid opposition, but I hope that most of you will embrace the challenge and give it a fair outing. If you turn up something that really is broken (like the Jails) I'll try to see that it gets fixed. I also hope that we see some mods -- but it would be a good idea to actually learn more about the defaults first, maybe?


- Sirian

Thanks Sirian for that answer about WW. But this means there isn't an option to go for no WW throughout the game.
Now, the rush will be for the pyramid to be able to get police state for a 50% reduction.

Fascism is a while into the game to be able to get rushmoore, to equip every city with a jail is costly.

* Why did you guys launch an AW game as your first event? Didn't you expect to need to learn a bit more about Civ4 to be successful here?

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one can learn a lot about a game by playing a variant. Besides we all play SP games I guess.

War Weariness only builds when you fight outside your own borders.

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Well, if you want to succeed in an AW game you need to expand and thus, fight outside your territory. The real question is, how far does the WW build up be (e.g. how many unhappy faces can you get for it, is there a limit?)

There's no limit.

It is per-opponent, though, so you can reduce it if you eliminate a rival. It will also fade slowly over time if no new pressure is added. (Stop attacking if it starts to hurt. Turtle for a while.)

The AIs suffer a lot less WW than the player, but it's not zero, so they too will stop and turtle for a while if their WW climbs too high.

Well, if you want to succeed in an AW game you need to expand...

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You are going to have to rethink some of these assumptions and guesses, or you are literally at risk of guessing your way out of a good time.

one can learn a lot about a game by playing a variant.

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You will learn the wrong lessons from a variant if you don't yet know and understand the defaults.


I'm sure there are ways to improve Civ4 Always War, but at the moment, all of the feedback is heavily colored by clutter from Civ3 mechanics. If you want to read something that may give you some insight in to how my perspective on Civ4 differs from yours, and why, please Read This Report and compare what I knew then about Civ3 to what you know now about it. Maybe this will help you (or someone else) to transition to Civ4 more smoothly.


- Sirian

Sirian said:

You are going to have to rethink some of these assumptions and guesses, or you are literally at risk of guessing your way out of a good time.
- Sirian

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For me, this is what makes Civ4AW interesting. Whether Civ3 or Civ4 is better in the end doesn't matter - Civ 4 will offer opportunities to play differently. A lot of the issues here is exactly what we need to learn how to best handle. This is the part that I like best. Unelss the game is seriously broken (which doesn't sound like it is the case) then I think we can have fun with it. That for one is why I wanted to dive right in rather than learning the game thouroughly first.

Whether Civ4 AW has the same lasting power as Civ 3 isn't as important to me at the moment though I can (and do - part of the 'analysis' that helps improve the game) make guesses. It'll be the learning that is fun. I am willing to wait to make a final call (whether to continue to play Civ4 AW) when I do become an expert and know the ins and outs.

Besides in this game we are doing decently

One other comment, I am very glad to hear WW is only accrued via offensive actions. WW is one thing I really disliked about Civ3 - the ways you got it seemed very broken - successfully defending for example.

I am glad to hear that AW was payed attention to during developement. You have my thanks for that Sirian It makes me feel more confident that it will have some lasting power.

Sirian,

Thanks for the response. However, I don't think most of your points addressed my compaint: that is there is one AW option (which means it IS designed) but no suitable civic combination (no WW).

You confirmed that there is no option to eliminate WW altogether. Maybe (managing) WW is not that bad, but it's still an annoying burden for people who play AW. It's not fun.

I still prefer a government that really fits the design of AW in CIV4. I don't know which one makes me feel better: knowing it was an oversight from beta testers or a misfeature that was designed by the developers.

Rest of what you said, although not really related to this compaint, is OK. I am all for a smarter AI or change of strategy.

FYI - this is where we stand.

Roster
1. Greebley - [gone 11-18 to 11-28]
2. Mark1031 - has it
3. Handy
4. ThERat -

5. Sir Bugsy - game not running, laptop in the trashbin
6. Obormot - waiting for the patch

Sirian said:

What an odd thing to say.

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Well, I don't think of you as an AW player. I see you as a "well rounded I can beat any variant at high level player". I'm sorry if I offended, that was not my intention. I miss C3 monarchy [no WW], but I'll have to get over it.

Sirian - I hope will find the time to read this and this.

Sirian said:

This isn't Civ3 AW, and I expect it may take some of you longer to adapt than others. Some of you may not like fighting less-stupid opposition, but I hope that most of you will embrace the challenge and give it a fair outing.

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I will try to embrace the challenge, and will try to adapt. So far [through SP and SG play] AW in C4 seems less a combat game and more a builder's game compared to C3, so adaptation is a must. As the maps get bigger this becomes even more tha case. I do not fear a smart AI, but kinda I miss the fun of constant combat and living on a razor's edge in the early AW game fending off a bunch of units.

I always felt that having a form of government that negated all WW in CivIII was a mistake. It should not be that easy.

That you can now do much to aliviate WW in IV, that seems fair. The fun or lack of it is not objective, but I can say it is fun for me to try to figure out a way to over come problems.

If no means exist to allow me to play AW and deal at least for the most part with WW, that would be a problem.

At this point you guys have no idea if that is the case or not. I am not sure either, but it does look like it will be managable.

I took the tact that I would expand slowly after contacts and only have one stack of troops out of my lands. At least as much as I could. so far that has worked. I have not made jails yet as I do not have the tech.