Balance issues in Civ4

[traius]

???
Must be playing a totally differnet Civ IV than you do...

It's definitely happened to me before. I've played games where at the Astro exploring part of the game, I come across empires that have filled their borders so much as to have cities that don't have real food... and other empires that still have half of their continent unfilled.
In the last game I was talking about in general (where I lost to AP cheese), one civ left a space where there was a silk and a fish in the BFC, another civ left a space with an oil and a fish(though to be fair, it couldn't see the oil), and an infantry-equipped civ failed to take over a barb city on its continent circa 1600 AD on marathon that had access to 2 fish and an oil in its waters (and that civ was the first to plastics)!
The worst offender I've ever seen (that I could only prove by opening WB after making an educated guess), was hatshepsut gunning for the pyramids on an emperor game. She had failed to found a single other city, and decided to build pyramids without stone. She eventually lost the bid, and it was like she just gave up on the game. She let the other civs around her take every available expansion spot, even when the mids had failed and she could go settlers again. She was at 1 city in 500 AD when I conquered her one-city, wonder-less, completely backwards empire.

 

[misterfilmgeek]

???
Must be playing a totally differnet Civ IV than you do...

It definitely happens. I'm in the middle of a game right now where Freddy is right beside me, but at 500ish AD, despite being Organized, has only seven cities with some good land left between us (my mismanagement, i.e. bad play, prevented me from taking all of it before now). And Julius, on my other flank, failed to rush for an Iron tile in between us, despite him hitting IW before me and having no iron at all.

 

[Ghpstage]

Pericles is terrible for this, stick him next to an AI with expansionist flavours and its bound to happne . Some of the American leaders and the wonderspammy types have a tendency to do this too.....

Ah well, its only for me anyway. Yea the ballista elephant was OTT, I remember doing that because of how much people complained it didnt have enough improvements.

I think a unique War Ellie was a bad idea to begin with, the base unit is quite rare, and extremely powerful unit afterall.
Any unique version short of resourclessness would be unavailable in half, or probably more games, but any noteworthy improvement would tip it over the edge whenever you could use it, unless you weakened it in some way to compensate......

 

[gps]

It definitely happens. I'm in the middle of a game right now where Freddy is right beside me, but at 500ish AD, despite being Organized, has only seven cities with some good land left between us (my mismanagement, i.e. bad play, prevented me from taking all of it before now).

Well, still there's a subtle difference between slow expansion and no expansion ("refuse" was the word used). With seven cities the guy is clearly expanding. And although I usually don't play deity I hardly remeber situations where there is still unsettled land once we reach 100 AD or so.

 

[bhavv]

Yea if I could bother with that mod still, I'd just change it to having an extra first strike chance on top of the original mounted bonus, just because of the ballista part seeming to be ranged.

I still dont like SODs and collateral damage in Civ IV, they are too OP.

 

[Lennier]

Well, still there's a subtle difference between slow expansion and no expansion ("refuse" was the word used). With seven cities the guy is clearly expanding. And although I usually don't play deity I hardly remeber situations where there is still unsettled land once we reach 100 AD or so.

Do you play maps with more than one landmass? A landmass with only one civ on it is more likely to have unsettled land rather late than one with seven.

 

[TheSunIsDark]

Starting position can completely screw up a game. The start normalizer doesn't take into account the land around you. I once got hemmed in by Boudicca of Mongolia. She ended up DoWing me, and I ended the war so I could get a cheese AP victory. Only conceivable victory, given the amount of land I had and the fact that we were both falling behind in tech due to the war.

 

[rbj2001]

Play K-mod y'all. Sorts out a lot of balance issues as well as making the AI much better.

 

[ztrapon]

I'd say position is the by far most important aspect in games. Getting crammed in the middle, compared to shuffling one's own peninsula on the outskirts of the continent, is really what determines the outcome. But that's also charming, sometimes being forced to play as underdog.

I've yet to experience a problem with any of the issues OP mentioned (I play on Emperor), the only really bothersome issue I have is with settling new cities. Settlers are too cheap, and they shouldn't be unlimited. I hate how settling cities boils down to just grabbing land before everyone else, and arranging them to get as many cities as possible. It should require some planning, and a city's placement should matter - having one every third tile is ridiculous.

 

[gps]

Do you play maps with more than one landmass?

Yes, I have some routine playing Continents, there usually are more than one Civ on a continent - and there usually is no more free land once my explorers start travelling the globe. It's obvious that other mapscripts (especially Terra, which is intended to leave unsettled land for later exploration) might lead to different results. But all this is a totally different league from AI expansion behaviour (or the lack of it) in Civ V BNW.

 

[Mec AntiKythera]

Every now and then I have come across a civ who settles three or four cities and then stops. Plenty of land but no desire to use it. It makes you want to tell them to turn on Sid's tips. Certainly one of the most unbalancing aspects of the game. Having some differences is a positive thing, one game you are fighting uphill and the next you are coasting down it. I like the variation.