Recent content by Steelsmith

Cool, I didn't know about that MSCONFIG tool. My wife has lots of crap loading when her computer boots up, that will help me get rid of some of it.

I honestly don't miss them. An army of Knights is useful in medieval times, but what good is it in the modern age? In Civ3, I found myself parking my Knight armies on some hill near the capital once they were outdated, and pretended it was a monument. Armies were needed in Civ3 because it...

I think that's part of the problem: you're looking for certainty, rather than odds. As quoted above, "If one unit has double the strength of the other, it has a 2-1 chance of obtaining victory." So in a fight between an Infantry unit (str 20) and a Maceman (str 5), the Infantry has a 4 to 1...

I had the same reaction at first, though now I'm coming to like it more. The old one showed you all units by type, but not their locations, or by city, which (iirc) didn't include units not in cities. The new one shows you how many of each type you have, and when you click on that type, it...

Even if your ally does very little to fight your common enemy -- or even nothing at all -- having allies in a war can still be very beneficial. For one thing, your common enemy is likely to send units against all attackers, whereas without allies they would all be directed against you. If...

:lol: I'm 46. I have a life. I've had lots of dates. Also a wife, two kids, a good job, a fine house and a nice car. So I'm grown up now (sort of) and I can do whatever I want with my time, thank you. I'm glad to see I'm not the oldest one here. I also play MMOGs a lot, and I...

The AI is definitely smarter than it was in Civ III! As an example, in Civ III when an AI civ demanded tribute, and you refused, the AI would either declare war on the spot, or back down. Sometimes, a distant civ would declare war, and then not even send any invasion force. Contrast that to...

My understanding is that First Strike means that when your unit is attacked, your defending unit actually strikes the first blow instead of the attacker. That is negated if the attacking unit also has first strike, though. But still, a handy thing to have for defending units.

So last night I was finishing up my game as Roosevelt. I was chugging along nicely, confident of a diplomatic or space race victory. All the other civs except Napoleon were at least "pleased" with me. So I built the U.N. only to see Mao elected chairman! I checked the diplomatic screen to...

Mwahahahahaaa.... :nuke: :eek: :nuke: Now that is cool.

There is a new feature in Civ IV that is helpful here... but kind of a pain. If you zoom way out (to the point where you see the clouds) there is a "strategy layer" that lets you draw lines on the map. What I do is turn the grid on, then zoom out and draw lines to show where my city boundaries...

Guilty. :p I tend to favor symmetry too much in strategy games, and this is just one example. In city-building games like Caesar III, Pharaoh, etc. I often had to force myself not to use cookie-cutter blocks and instead try to grow a city more naturally. There were times in Civ III that I...

Discovering a religion does not make it your state religion unless you explicity choose it to be. It allows you to build the shrine in that city, but it doesn't confer all the benefits of your state religion. Theology prevents any other religion from spreading to your cities, whether through...

This is the pattern I always used to shoot for in Civ III. This covers every square, with minimum (but some) overlap. This pattern allows 20 squares to be worked per city, including the city tile, and ensures every square is workable. As has been remarked, getting an exact build pattern...

I had a particularly memorable Civ III game with many "oh crap" moments. It was a GOTM game as Egypt, which started on a small island, so the big challenge was expanding to more than a few cities. I spotted some offshore land, and sent a galley with a spearman and settler. I found a nice...