After so many years...

[BalderP]

I'm in awe of Civ4 and Old World seems promising but has several faults. Note that I'm playing at magnificent level with raging barbarians. So after many years I'm here again. My thoughts:

1) Too many improvements. Mid game and later game are boring. Really boring. Stone requirements and improvements should be changed: improvements should ever be upgraded, no more 3-space useless combo like oden/theatre/colosseum or cold/temp/warm baths or x2 range/barracks and so on. Many of these improvements are almost useless after few turns of playing. Please change that. The world map become really awful afterall. Mid game is a rush against unhappiness while later game is really boring (I set auto for workers because of that). Really 4 pagan temples for each city? It seems nice to expand your borders but not this way

2) Roads should have more importance. Civ4 had the road-spam problem while you can win a old world game without a single piece of road.

3) the game breaker: Random Number generator. What i hated of civ4 is still here. Of course is not the warrior against tank but events are not random. Take Assyria 44539253 (lengthy (!), archipelago, large islands) and you, as the leader, will die every time at 37 yo. You'll take ever same spouse, your brother will... ok you know. It's so really difficult randomize?

Btw it's really a good game. I love it. After so many years I'm glad to play it. Sorry for my english. Dale I love to fight your Danes.

 

[PiR]

3) the game breaker: Random Number generator. What i hated of civ4 is still here. Of course is not the warrior against tank but events are not random. Take Assyria 44539253 (lengthy (!), archipelago, large islands) and you, as the leader, will die every time at 37 yo. You'll take ever same spouse, your brother will... ok you know. It's so really difficult randomize?

You can make different choices.

 

[BalderP]

No I can't. I played 10 games just to be sure. Every time same story. Do it please before talking.

 

[BalderP]

 

[BalderP]

14th or 15th attempt. I've lost the count. Same settings. 37 yo again and doomed

 

[OneWorld]

Have you done anything family related diffrent, like marrying in a different turn / a different spouse and so on?

I never play the same see again, so this wasn't on my attention right now, even if I play and enjoy the game a lot. What's your reason / motivation to play with the same seeds again?

In case of your other points: You can upgrade improvements (you need a judge leader for that). But mostly I want to have all three of them in a city if I can, as they can become super important. But if you can it's perhaps time to change to a higher difficulty level, as it sounds as you don't have to much challenges.
Also roads are super important (!), as they save you a lots of orders and fasten up your movement. They are war changers.

 

[Dale]

No I can't. I played 10 games just to be sure. Every time same story. Do it please before talking.

When you use the same seed, you will get the same RNG. That's by design. This is so that you can say "Hey guys, this nation-seed combo is really fun. Give it a try!" You are not meant to play that one seed over and over, use new random maps.

The seed is important for things like Game of the Week, replay, restart map, MP (to ensure fairness), and anti-cheat (so you can't undo-scrub).

 

[Dale]

I'm in awe of Civ4 and Old World seems promising but has several faults. Note that I'm playing at magnificent level with raging barbarians. So after many years I'm here again. My thoughts:

1) Too many improvements. Mid game and later game are boring. Really boring. Stone requirements and improvements should be changed: improvements should ever be upgraded, no more 3-space useless combo like oden/theatre/colosseum or cold/temp/warm baths or x2 range/barracks and so on. Many of these improvements are almost useless after few turns of playing. Please change that. The world map become really awful afterall. Mid game is a rush against unhappiness while later game is really boring (I set auto for workers because of that). Really 4 pagan temples for each city? It seems nice to expand your borders but not this way

The improvements stack. Plus, the specialists within those improvements are important. If you want to upgrade you can (Judges can upgrade, everyone else can replace improvements).

2) Roads should have more importance. Civ4 had the road-spam problem while you can win a old world game without a single piece of road.

Yeah, you can win Old World without roads. But roads generate city connections, assist with internal unit movement, create trade networks for your hamlets. They may not have a strict military benefit (aside from a bit better movement), but they have very important economic importance.

3) the game breaker: Random Number generator. What i hated of civ4 is still here. Of course is not the warrior against tank but events are not random. Take Assyria 44539253 (lengthy (!), archipelago, large islands) and you, as the leader, will die every time at 37 yo. You'll take ever same spouse, your brother will... ok you know. It's so really difficult randomize?

See above. Summary: The same seed with always generate the same outcome. By design.

Dale I love to fight your Danes.

I have a daughter you could marry, for an alliance?

 

[BalderP]

Ok so the seed is not only for the map but for everything else. Good to know

I'll try to explain better about improvements and roads.

After a while cities have so many urban tiles that roads are almost useless. Better use stones and orders to build something else since the beginning.

There are many intersting buildings but in the end I never build a lot of them. Libraries odeons theatres and many others are buildings that automated workers build at the end of the game when unhappiness is no more an issue.
I prefer specialized cities but from midgame they almost look all the same and they are gigantic so my point of view is more graphic and not only about game design. When referring to "upgrade" i didn't mean like judges do but a solution to avoid so many urban tiles occupied. I know and I like the stack bonuses but i don't really like the civ4 style of every tile improved. Urban tiles, quarries and mines everywhere. In my opinion resources should be rebalanced in favour of having less quarries and less mines around and more, much more, farms. More over some buildings should be merged, like baths for example, or "upgraded" as it works for walls/moat/towers to give a feel of a real "old world" and not a modern metropolitan area.
Garrison stronghold citadel 2barracks 2ranges 4pagan temples and at least one more of a main religion. Sometime 1 monastery. These are 12/13 buildings that every city has. Not counting wonders, hamlets, courthouse and stacking, it's easy to have 25 or more urban tiles in every city.

My opinion of course. Surely others like it or have their preferences but to me late game is boring.

Btw I noticed a possible bug. I don't know if it works as designed but missionaries can build temples/monasteries even on cities without religion.

 

[Solver]

The initial seed is a game seed, which is then used for the map but also for characters, who have their own individual seeds. If you use the same seed, your leader also gets the same starting seed. That seed changes in some circumstances like marriage, so if you don't marry (or marry twice) before turn 32 with that seed, your leader would live past it. Otherwise, apparently the combination of starting seed + one marriage dooms the leader at a young age. That's unlucky but certainly possible, and it seems that the randomness is working as designed.

 

[BalderP]

Ok thanks. I appreciate your answers about seed and even if I not played MP (yet) i like how it works as anti-cheat. Btw not a problem that leaders dies at young ages. Heir has more time to grow up in charge while the starting leader has not build up yet his fame. I was just curious about events thinking were always random. Usually i never replay a map but this time i tried many times, not because of his death but to try different starting strategies because this map has a lot of food near the starting city but when same events replied I restarted like a stubborn. Every time same spouse, same brother drunk, same illness lol Funny.

 

[BalderP]

Have you done anything family related diffrent, like marrying in a different turn / a different spouse and so on?

I never play the same see again, so this wasn't on my attention right now, even if I play and enjoy the game a lot. What's your reason / motivation to play with the same seeds again?

In case of your other points: You can upgrade improvements (you need a judge leader for that). But mostly I want to have all three of them in a city if I can, as they can become super important. But if you can it's perhaps time to change to a higher difficulty level, as it sounds as you don't have to much challenges.
Also roads are super important (!), as they save you a lots of orders and fasten up your movement. They are war changers.

I played same seed to try some starting strategies and same seed with different civs (persia/greece/assyria). Just 30/40 turns to see how it works. There is no real motivation aside training. I tried this map because of the starting location. I'll never finish it probably.

I play at magnificent level with raging barbarians. Usually i win by double victory (so i disabled it) but after 100 turns i don't really enjoy how cities grow/expand. Honestly i build rarely libraries/academies/university, markets/groceries/fairs, odeon/theater/colosseum if not for border expansion. Often i build courthouses and harbours and lot of temples, as I always try to have at least one main religion. Rarely cathedrals, i don't need them when they arrive. I rather deal with religions and religious buildings to mitigate unhappiness than building walls/moats/towers if not for defensive motivations. Of course every map requires a slightly different approach.

Maybe I'll should try "the great" level with civs that i know like greece/assyria/rome or try carthage/egypt that i never tried yet. Until now I always played as warmonger more than builder but barbarians are really raging and you can never trust other civs

Honestly i don't use roads so often. Many times you can build urban improvements with only 10 stone more. I prefer having a city unconnected for a while if it requires too many orders and stones. True that in some maps they help to move troops faster, around a mountain ridge for example, but i always try to think if it deserve resources and orders or i need them elsewhere. With sea maps roads are less important than in a landmass

 

[Solver]

Roads are important enough in my opinion, but appropriately for the time period it's an effort to build roads so having a road network connecting all the cities is an investment, and having roads on every tile (like Civ1-4) is impossible.

A connected city gets +2 growth, -1 discontent and -10% maintenance. Leaving some cities unconnected isn't the end of the world but the bonuses do add up when you connect them, and of course the mobility helps. You need roads to move quickly through hills or forested areas, and you also need roads to make later powerful units (like Onagers) not be painfully slow.

 

[BalderP]

Roads are important enough in my opinion, but appropriately for the time period it's an effort to build roads so having a road network connecting all the cities is an investment, and having roads on every tile (like Civ1-4) is impossible.

Yes is an investment, not so cheap imo, and really an improvement since civ1-4 road spamming

A connected city gets +2 growth, -1 discontent and -10% maintenance. Leaving some cities unconnected isn't the end of the world but the bonuses do add up when you connect them, and of course the mobility helps. You need roads to move quickly through hills or forested areas, and you also need roads to make later powerful units (like Onagers) not be painfully slow.

I agree that siege units are slow but usually when you can build them cities are great enough to avoid roads. Maybe you can build a 2-3 tiles road between rivers or something like that but urban tiles cover a third of the world midgame. Moreover roads are not so good to move huge armies by design of the 1upt so better move by rivers/seaside or urban tiles. Only in some huge maps you may need to build lot of roads. If I well remember my record was a 10 tiles road to bypass a ridge to connect two cities. An highway and I'm grateful that i got Babylon . I see that AI builds more roads than me and more farms too. Maybe for my style of playing roads are not so useful. Imho the bonus doesn't match the waste of orders and resources so I can afford several cities unconnected. When you have enough stones to build up the road network you really don't need it anymore and before that there are better uses for stones and orders! Maybe unconnected cities should get worst malus. Idk it's an idea. If i get an order malus to have a city out of my network I'll try to link asap or maybe I'll build the road before founding it. What I appreciate is that the game is wip with continuous debugging and rebalancing. Good Job. Keep going. I didn't mean to be rude with my original post, i love the game. Maybe i should try a mp game to look at different strategies

 

[OneWorld]

After a while cities have so many urban tiles that roads are almost useless. Better use stones and orders to build something else since the beginning.

As an addition to that: Roads are still useful on urban tiles for movement! Urban tiles cut down the movement penaltys from terrain (hills), but they don't give the discount to 2/3 of the movement cost that a road gives. That's especially notable for moving slow sieg engines. But yes, you can ignore that if your urban tiles follow a river or even better, following the coast (so the usefullness of roads is map dependet).

 

[PiR]

I find it best to travel through water personnally.