[BTS] Civilization IV: War Academy - update project

[Noble Zarkon]

The Civilization IV: War Academy is supposed to a place where:-

we have selected dozens of strategy articles that can help you become a better player at Civilization IV. You will find strategies that help you wage a successful military campaign, win the space race, and build the most prosperous civilization!

however many of the articles are seriously out of date and some of the advice plain wrong, in addition since the move to the new software there are lots of formatting issues. I've volunteered to help put together a new more up to date version of the War Academy over the winter but I can't do it all on my own!

If you want to help out here are the things that need done:-

1. Review each article in the current War Academy and decide whether it can be kept as is, needs updated or should be removed.
   
   
2. Identify articles / threads which highlight current best practice and should be included in the Academy.
   
   
3. Identify any missing areas that need articles specially written for them.

Together we can create a War Academy worthy of the name!

 

[Noble Zarkon]

Reserved.

 

[Noble Zarkon]

Reserved.

 

[Pedro78]

I'd be glad to help. How shall we proceed -- find a few volunteers and split up the table of contents?

IMO we have to be careful about what should be removed. There is plenty of "outdated" info that is still extremely useful to beginners (i.e. players trying to win on Noble). I'm thinking about Sisituil's strategy guide for beginners in particular. Many things in it are "wrong" by current standards but it was a tremendous amount of work to create and does still teach everyone how to win on Noble (that's how I got my first win on Noble). My point is that this kind of articles shouldn't be removed unless someone is willing to replace them with something up-to-date and of similar quality.

I would definitely link all the Civ Illustrated guides in the war academy (not sure if it has already been done)

 

[Noble Zarkon]

find a few volunteers and split up the table of contents?

That sounds like a plan!

I would definitely link all the Civ Illustrated guides in the war academy

I will do but I need to fix the missing images first.

My point is that this kind of articles shouldn't be removed unless someone is willing to replace them with something up-to-date and of similar quality.

This is a really good point - there are 2 keys to me, a) Is the information correct e.g. I think it is generally agreed that building the Space Elevator delays your victory not help and b) Is it helpful - if a guide will still help them win on Noble that's great as long as it's not teaching them really bad habits that will hinder their progress. I guess it will be a case of looking at each article and coming to some consensus.

 

[elitetroops]

Great initiative! I can confess that I haven't read much of the War Academy, only every now and then when someone has referred to something from there in S&T discussions. My impression is indeed that a lot of it is outdated.

Sisiutil's guide is also quite outdated. It does contain much good advice, but also a lot that isn't any good at all. While it has been updated to cover BtS-specific stuff, some basic strategies are still based on Vanilla and Warlords. For example saying BW is top priority early tech and food techs only come after that. I believe this was the goto strategy back when chops gave full yields without Maths. A lot of other advice in there is also very questionable. It would be great if it could be updated.

 

[Pedro78]

Well in my experience this guide isn't that bad. I learned how to beat Noble from it. Then I learned to beat IMM from AZ's videos. Then I really got into the game and moved up to deity using these forums. I think it's a fairly natural path. It would sure be cool if someone updated Sisituil's guide with more "modern" and correct knowledge but I don't think it's necessary. And writing a quality guide would take dozens of hours, if not hundreds.

When playing on Noble players will always get into bad habits because you can still beat this diffiuclty very easily while building every wonder in the game etc. Something that would be more interesting than simply re-writing Sisituil's guide would be a sequel called "Guide to beating IMM+" or something like that. Could also make a guide on how to beat deity, even though it would take hundreds and hundreds of hours to make it really effective.

However, updating the War Academy is different imo because people who look into it are people who are seriously willing to get better at Civ4 so it shouldn't teach them all kinds of bad habits like "beeline Praets when you're playing JC, beeline Samurais when playing Toku, don't build a single cottage when playing Alex etc."

 

[elitetroops]

Main problem with Sisiutil's guide is that it goes wrong right from T0. It presents Worker, Warrior, Scout, Workboat and Settler as equally valid first builds, it does not emphasize the value of food resources and it says BW is more important than food techs. For the noble or sub-noble player who might start by building a scout, switching to worker first and realizing the importance of food is probably enough to help them move up a couple of difficulty levels. These things are just so fundamental, regardless of level you are playing, that I can't really recommend a guide that gets it wrong.

A couple of years ago we were discussing a lot with Seraiel and a group of other players about how to continue the Civ Illustrated series. Unfortunately those discussions were lost when the forum moved to this new platform. Back then, I was mostly interested in writing Civ Illustrated #0, which would have been a basic introduction to the game mechanics and concepts. Sort of a beginner's guide. The idea was that it would explain the basics of how things worked and how they were best used, then contain links to the other parts of the series for those readers who wanted more in depth information about the subjects. Something like that could work in the War Academy as well. Could be a bit tricky though, since the War Academy isn't purposefully structured, but just a collection of random articles.

 

[Noble Zarkon]

Back then, I was mostly interested in writing Civ Illustrated #0, which would have been a basic introduction to the game mechanics and concepts. Sort of a beginner's guide. The idea was that it would explain the basics of how things worked and how they were best used, then contain links to the other parts of the series for those readers who wanted more in depth information about the subjects.

I think that would be really helpful - we can have a think about how to structure the War Academy, at the moment it's one Page on the Main Site but we could change that if required.

 

[intutama]

Maybe having one forum post to discuss each separate War Academy entry separately ?

Also I would recommend merging articles within one where possible, and please please avoid titles like "Vocum Sineratio: Dona Eis Relions" which are maybe nice for role playing but are really garbage when it comes to finding what you're searching for.

Finally I think the entries everyone agrees on should just provide the information without too much blabla. For example for fog-busting (a point where there's no info on in the WA), an article could just say "Barbarians will not spawn within 2 tiles of a unit or city" with a screenshot is enough. No need for things such as "The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines Barbarian as..." when all you want is clear info on one topic. Again it depends on the topic at hand.

But it is definitively a good idea, seeing that there are always people joining the forum to try to get better at Emperor+ and having such referable articles would be nice.

 

[Pedro78]

"Barbarians will not spawn within 2 tiles of a unit or city"

Technically, barbs won't spawn within 2 tiles of any unit. They also won't spawn on any tile that is revealed to any player, including barbarians. However barbarians can spawn on a fogged tile 2 tiles away from your culture. Maybe it's what you meant but I found the explanation a bit confusing.

 

[intutama]

Technically, barbs won't spawn within 2 tiles of any unit. They also won't spawn on any tile that is revealed to any player, including barbarians. However barbarians can spawn on a fogged tile 2 tiles away from your culture. Maybe it's what you meant but I found the explanation a bit confusing.

Finally a clear explanation of fogbusting for the new War Academy

 

[Pangaea]

Due to Photobucket Moderator Action: snip , this article no longer works Is it possible to fix it somehow?

Moderator Action: Please mind your language --Noble Zarkon
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889

 

[WastinTime]

Due to Photobucket .... this article no longer works Is it possible to fix it somehow?

Yes! If someone can edit the post.
You have to add "~original" to the end of every image
This post shows an example.
Full discussion

 

[Noble Zarkon]

Thanks - I have editing rights so can do that but looks like the post needs a lot of work but I have tested it and it works

As far as the War Academy goes I think it would be helpful to break it down into categories e.g:-

1. Managing your Economy
2. City Placement
3. Barbarians
4. Know Your Enemy
   
   etc etc, thoughts?

 

[Anysense]

5. Diplomacy. You want to confuse, cheat and manipulate your enemies, and even trade sometimes.
6. Warfare. Of course, you want to take their cities. That sounds easy but its not.
How does that sound?

 

[ueih]

Great initiative! I would like to see articles on Strategy, aligning not only to traits but also terrains and geolocation as well. Often, Strategy, like warring or specialist, largely depends on Leaders' traits. However, if you're given a "tough" start, it would be difficult to execute such Strategies. If we have case studies to assist illustrate how to make the right decision and adapt, it'd be awesome.

Also, Espionage, of course!! I went through most of my games (Emperor at this stage) with limited use of Espionage; only to "peer into" opponents' strength and research. I've seen some crazy use like Culture Victory with Espionage !!! Would be get if we have articles on such Strategy.

 

[Bibor]

@Noble Zarkon Where are with this? We have at least a dozen people active in Civ4, perhaps this would be a good time to push on with this project.

 

[caketastydelish]

I think the name of this should be changed. It is literally called "war academy" and includes strategies to win the game peacefully.

Moderator Action: Please stay on topic. leif

 

[dankok8]

I would be happy to volunteer to fix and improve what is probably the best BTS Reference Guide and very professionally made. It was originally created by DJ Anion. Link to his thread is here. I consult this document often and it has so much great info but it is for BTS patch 3.13 (latest is 3.19 so there may have been some changes) and it has some typos and a few errors where it mixes up commerce and wealth/gold for example. I'd also like to add numbers from DanF's spreadsheet on leader personalities into the guide as opposed to just saying "often", "rarely" for unit and wonder builds. I'll look through that thread and integrate more feedback from people. And if anyone on here uses it, maybe you have some feedback for improvements. I will probably just update the Print-Friendly version which is the smallest file and the one I always use. The others have very heavy visuals and load more slowly.