Building the War Academy for Civ4

[VirusMonster]

I think Micromanagement tips is a great article. The ideas in it are very unique. Don't rate an article by the stars people vote for it, but by their uniquiness. Don't make war academy a popular article junk mess, put some low star articles in it too to make it more unique.

In my experience, especially at harder difficulty levels, you need those tips to make difference in your play. They can jump your science rate by %20-30.

Deity guide is great too, but again it belongs to a different section. Micromanagement is a math article, whereas Deity guide is a strategy article. I would definitely put them both into the War academy.

 

[Kalleyao]

I would seperate the strategy section into 2 or even 3 parts; one where it talks about general, non-race specific strategies(slingshots, diplomacy, city specializations, etc.), and one where the author talks about a strategy with a certain race under certain settings or at some specific difficulty level. All HOF winner articles(i.e. ATurkishGuy 500k point writeup, hendrickzoon GOTM writeups should go there.
Deity guides should go to same place. These sort of articles can be very advanced tough and don't target newcomers. There are some newcomer guides which I think you should definitely include.

To keep both HOF fanatics and dislikers happy, consider including a variety of articles, not just only that of HOF winners. For example, I know some people have some tolerance to a little bit of save&reloading in their games, some people don't. Try to include articles that would address both audiences, not only one.

True. People that are new to the game (like zombieguys) need to warm up with low level strats article before reading deity strats. Otherwise they won't understand.

 

[Kalleyao]

I think Micromanagement tips is a great article. The ideas in it are very unique. Don't rate an article by the stars people vote for it, but by their uniquiness. Don't make war academy a popular article junk mess, put some low star articles in it too to make it more unique.

In my experience, especially at harder difficulty levels, you need those tips to make difference in your play. They can jump your science rate by %20-30.

Deity guide is great too, but again it belongs to a different section. Micromanagement is a math article, whereas Deity guide is a strategy article. I would definitely put them both into the War academy.

Finally something we agree oon. For those who like to micro, go micro but I don't. still, I think both should be included.

 

[Sumorex]

Is it just me, or did a lot of articles take a star rating hit recently?

To the OP's point, I think these articles have worth thru all of the versions of Civ IV:
Micromanagement is alive and well in Civ 4 by Zombie69
Combat Explained by Arathorn

 

[drkodos]

I hate the Deity Guide and HoF stuff. They have nothing to do with playing the game, and everything to do with choosing artificial settings so that you can say you beat deity / scored high.

Agreed 100 percent.


I think the guide should be aimed at the Meat-of-the-Bell-Curve type players like myself.

Just my .02.

 

[Thunderfall]

Is it just me, or did a lot of articles take a star rating hit recently?

It was because someone from Sweden created 4 DL accounts today and used them to give more than a dozen articles here a rating of 1. I have banned those accounts and deleted the invalid votes.

The thread rating is easy to abuse, so I certainly will not just use it when deciding which articles to add to the academy. I hope to get the Civ4 War Academy up by the end of the month.

 

[TheDS]

It's been a while since I read any Civ3 strategies in the war academy, but it seems to me that the organizational method should be simple to figure out:

Beginner
Intermediate
Advanced

Beginner stuff would be the most basic stuff, intended to get the newbies familiarized with how the game works. Just the basics here, let's not go overboard with the leet guide to winning the game in 3 turns.

Intermediate stuff will put some previous stuff together, to the point where anyone should be able to learn at least something, improve their play, and win at the regular difficulties or slightly higher.

Advanced would be where you put those neat tricks, like how to beat Deity or get a million points or whatever, even if they're hollow victories.

Each of these categroies can be split up into General Advice and Specific Advice (as needed), where General would be an overall strategy and Specific would be more specific. (Very elaborate, right?)

Articles could include how to use units in combat, how to use special powers, how to build cities on diferent terrains, what kinds of improvements one should use, running up the tech tree quickly for what results you want, and so on.

 

[Zombie69]

True. People that are new to the game (like zombieguys) need to warm up with low level strats article before reading deity strats. Otherwise they won't understand.

I will not bite, except to say that i started playing Civ in 1990, when you were still probably wearing diappers, and that i play on Immortal, on settings that make the game 10 times more challenging than the supposed "Deity" games that you play. Enough said.

 

[VirusMonster]

I will not bite, except to say that i started playing Civ in 1990, when you were still probably wearing diappers, and that i play on Immortal, on settings that make the game 10 times more challenging than the supposed "Deity" games that you play. Enough said.

haha Zombie no need to prove your class; you have very technical, nice article. But if your article is going to be in war academy, I think you should update it with data from other game speeds. For example, include that it takes 30 turns on Marathon for the queue to lose production or some extra information about whipping that is already inside your own thread. It is some extra work for you, but more people will benefit from it.

Kallayeo, sorry, but man, can you be nicer in your jokes you have written no articles yet, whereas I think he contributed some important ideas to the forums. Being a commentator only and writing an article to realize how difficult it actually it is to write a good one are two different playing fields.

Anyway, my article just beats both of you An entire section should be devoted about it

 

[Nares]

True. People that are new to the game (like zombieguys) need to warm up with low level strats article before reading deity strats. Otherwise they won't understand.

I haven't seen many deity articles that start without statements like...

Make sure you start ... If not, regenerate map until you get that start position.

The article will focus on giving you a head start on what I think is the optimum strategy, game preferences, and civilization.

Those aren't exactly strategies so much as they are walkthroughs that incorporate some strategies. Most tend to adjust the map settings to produce the desired victory type. Heck, I'd almost consider a guide on map settings to be more practical to gameplay than some Deity guides I've seen.

 

[RemoWilliams]

The brand new article by Hans Lemurson entitled "Subsidies and Aggressive Trading Practices."

It's up to date, unlike a lot of the golden oldies out there (I sure would like to see an updated "optimal early growth" hint hint), and it covers a lot of ground in a short space.

 

[Shigga]

The thread rating is easy to abuse, so I certainly will not just use it when deciding which articles to add to the academy. I hope to get the Civ4 War Academy up by the end of the month.

Ok I was missing that piece of information. So just scrap my proposal.

So we have to go for pure quality and continued up-to-dateness

 

[Zombie69]

I think you should update it with data from other game speeds.

Done. The other parts of the article are mostly irrelevant of game speed. I added at the end of the whipping section a link to Malekithe's excel spreadsheet.

As usual, if someone has something interesting to contribute, i'm happy to include it. Thanks for the suggestion and thanks to Malekithe for making that file.

 

[pigswill]

I like the idea of dividing the war academy by difficulty so people can zoom in on articles that relate to their general knowledge/experience ie. beginners, improvers, experts.

 

[The Tyrant]

I like the idea of dividing the war academy by difficulty so people can zoom in on articles that relate to their general knowledge/experience ie. beginners, improvers, experts.

That's basically what I did with my sig -- the first half are strategy / tactics articles while the second half are how-things-work articles. The links are also organized in the order I think they should be read. First, the good overall articles for learning, then articles that delve into other aspects of play, and once you're ready for it, Zombie's article on micromanagement.

The topics in some of those articles could be better served, though, by having the information condensed into new articles that cover the material in one place, with a logical order to it.

 

[cabert]

That's basically what I did with my sig -- the first half are strategy / tactics articles while the second half are how-things-work articles. The links are also organized in the order I think they should be read. First, the good overall articles for learning, then articles that delve into other aspects of play, and once you're ready for it, Zombie's article on micromanagement.

The topics in some of those articles could be better served, though, by having the information condensed into new articles that cover the material in one place, with a logical order to it.

true!
discussions are great to find new ideas, but the articles tend to lose logic.

 

[Zombie69]

I suggest adding the following to your sig :
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=140952

It has a great list of techs each type of Great Person will give, in the order they'll give them. Look at the end of the thread, not the first post.

 

[The Tyrant]

Thanks, Zombie. I've added it, and didn't even have to link to a post # since the OP has been edited to bring it up to date.

 

[DariusI]

I've not really read a lot of articles here yet, but the War Academy of CivIII provides some great stuff! So it's a great idea to have one for CivIV as well.
I think SexSoxSax's article on multiplayer gaming should be in the war academy. It provides newcomers with some good and crucial lessons for survival.
Maybe a distinction in the War Academy between articles applicable to Emperor and Deity on the one hand and monarch to chieftain on the other would be good. Especially since u can more easily skip through the articles.

Darius I, the Undaunted of Persia.

 

[Murky]

What I would like the see in the Civ4 WA is at least one game walkthrough for each level of difficulty. You could have some 4oTM winners post their winning strategies. You could have the "experts" run through each difficulty with screenshots and player notes sort of like Sulla does on his website.

It should also have some entertainment value and be fun to read.