Civ IV anyone?

[Abaxial]

So I did get Civ IV on offer, but I haven't put more than an hour or so into yet. I need to find a guide, because there's no tutorial mode, and it's sufficiently different that one can't just cruise along.

Shame about the graphics. I did go back and play a game of Civ V to see how it held up - very well, in fact. The graphics are just so much better than Civ VI - the world doesn't look like it was made out of modelling clay. So rare for a new version of a game to be a backward step in graphic quality. Just compare, for instance, the ironclad model in both games. In Civ V it looks like a real ship; in Civ VI it's a little plastic box.

 

[historix69]

Each civ will have a Unique District ability that: Culture Bombs, Grants access to a building 2 eras early (and priced for the new era), or adds a bonus trade route.

In other 4X games like Master of Orion, I liked the feature to simply customize my race/civ depending on my playstyle when starting a new game.
I miss this feature in Civ series.

 

[Victoria]

to the point that some original release civs (lookin' at you here @Victoria ) are massively underpowered

I played England because she was underpowered but fun and could come back from really bad situations... I often felt really doomed on Deity just to find Pax saved the day. Now that's gone I'm learning EU now, just visiting the site out of habit. Hated IV, pay me and I still wouldn't play it. Doom stacks and sliders were not my cup of tea but did allow the AI to be smarter.

 

[historix69]

I really enjoyed Civ4.
Since I started with Civ1 in the 90s, sliders and stacks were not a problem, although they could have added more tactical features like supply, flanking bonus, etc.
One of the drawbacks was the memory limit (32 bit). I usually did not finish games on Giant Earth since the game became unstable and crashed too often when reaching industrial age.
The reasons to not go back to Civ4 at the moment : the graphics and too many newer games to play.

 

[Esperr]

So I did get Civ IV on offer, but I haven't put more than an hour or so into yet. I need to find a guide, because there's no tutorial mode, and it's sufficiently different that one can't just cruise along.

Shame about the graphics. I did go back and play a game of Civ V to see how it held up - very well, in fact. The graphics are just so much better than Civ VI - the world doesn't look like it was made out of modelling clay. So rare for a new version of a game to be a backward step in graphic quality. Just compare, for instance, the ironclad model in both games. In Civ V it looks like a real ship; in Civ VI it's a little plastic box.

Civ IV is a gift from the micro gods. You really gotta micro your citizens and what there working at different times.

Some basic starting tips:
Slavery is broken

Settle citys with a food resource in the first ring, you need them to grow fast for whipping

Dont worry about lux to much in the beggining. Your can control happyness with slavery

Cottages are important, especially around the cap.

Settle citys with overlapping tiles so they can share tiles at different times, try to overlap food tiles.

99 percent of the time, the firat thing you build in cap is a worker.

Early horse archer rush and ax rush can work. But later you will NEED seige units. More siege units then actual attackers.

Try to keep science at 90 or 100. Dont be afraid to build wealth. Because money buildings arent worth it, build wealth instead of science, it eill generate more science then research because BPT is tied to income, not population or science buildings like V and VI.

Slavery is broken.

Use Huayna Capuc as a good starting civ. There terrace is a granary that also makes culture, good starting techs, good UU, financial is also OP.

Like for real slavery is broken, they "nerfed" it by increasing its upkeep cost in one patch and its still a complete joke how broken it is.

Edit: also this game is much more difficult then V and VI. Civ IV deity players still lose on Deity sometimes and Immortal. Its not like VI where you can play your third game,on Deity and never lose at it.in IV emperor seems to be where the game goes from lovely british police to american para military cops.

 

[f1rpo]

So I did get Civ IV on offer, but I haven't put more than an hour or so into yet. I need to find a guide, because there's no tutorial mode, and it's sufficiently different that one can't just cruise along.

I'm not sure about the Steam version, but the original release had a tutorial. You had to start the base game (Civilization4.exe) though in order to access it, not one of the expansions. See the attached excerpt from the manual.

Your can control happyness with slavery

As a house rule, I've stopped using Slavery; I'm happier that way.

 

[Disgustipated]

I didn't care for the slavery mechanic much. Only really used it in emergencies.

As for a tutorial, I don't remember any. When I was playing 2 months ago I found myself struggling to remember some concepts. I couldn't remember which tiles should get roads (because they get bonuses alter on from things like railroads), and which didn't need roads. Back in our day, we had to read big, thick manuals to learn how to play the game. I still have my Civ2 and SMAC manuals, things of beauty.

 

[historix69]

I didn't care for the slavery mechanic much. Only really used it in emergencies.

As for a tutorial, I don't remember any. When I was playing 2 months ago I found myself struggling to remember some concepts. I couldn't remember which tiles should get roads (because they get bonuses alter on from things like railroads), and which didn't need roads. Back in our day, we had to read big, thick manuals to learn how to play the game. I still have my Civ2 and SMAC manuals, things of beauty.

I still have "Civilization or Rome on 640K a Day" in my shelf (besides the various civ manuals.)

 

[ThunderLizard2]

Yeah, I think Civ VI handles the 1UPT better than Civ V did, but it isn’t perfect yet. It also might be too complicated for the AI as they always struggle with it. They just don’t create enough units to defend properly, and I’m never scared of them surprise attacking one of my cities past the ancient era. I miss having that fear in Civ IV where I actually had to defend my cities.

Civ IV was the last Civ game with a decent AI. I think the 1 UPT is a big part of it and the Civ V developer even admitted this was a big mistake. Civ VI seems like a glorified SimCity type game.

 

[bonafide11]

Civ IV was the last Civ game with a decent AI. I think the 1 UPT is a big part of it and the Civ V developer even admitted this was a big mistake. Civ VI seems like a glorified SimCity type game.

Civ IV's AI was terrible at first too though, and people here complained about it mercilessly. They didn't fix it until the end of the game's cycle, which gives me confidence they can do it for Civ VI.

 

[ThunderLizard2]

Civ IV's AI was terrible at first too though, and people here complained about it mercilessly. They didn't fix it until the end of the game's cycle, which gives me confidence they can do it for Civ VI.

Civ IV to Civ IV BTS was 21 months (Oct 2005 to July 2007). Civ VI was released Oct 2016 and I very much doubt its AI will be fixed by this July. IMHO Civ V AI was never fixed by Firaxis.

 

[isau]

I will say one thing I miss about Civ 4 very much was a sense of need to observe what was going on in the rest of the world and to stick my foot in and intervene. It has a real sense of world politics that is lacking in the later titles. In both 5 and 6 I just generally don't care that much, and in 6 I can't even bribe players into wars at all outside of declaring a joint war.

In IV you had to really watch who was forming relationships and who was out conquering who. A worst case scenario was a weak civ located near a powerful war monger, who could and would turn on them and eradicate them from the continent, snowballing their own power. I do kind of miss that feeling of sailing the first Caravel across the ocean to the new continents and finding out to, to your horror, that a single civ is dominating the place.

Tech trading, meanwhile, while at times overpowered, also meant that if you didn't keep an eye on who was trading with who you could find yourself in a very bad position very fast. I just don't care that France is trading Oranges to England. I DO care when they trade Iron Working, Machinery, and Civil Service.

Also I will admit I miss that feeling of dread whenever you heard the war horn sound effect and knew someone had just declared war. That sound effect was so effective. It really needs to return to this game. Along with the feeling of actual threat.

 

[Disgustipated]

Yeah I had fear when I heard that war horn sound effect. And yes runaway powers were a major thing, especially with Vassalage. Even peaceful Vassalage could really up an AI opponents power.

 

[Benvolio]

You mean Sid Meier? I kid, he did the narration in the expansions, not the base game.

As I recall, Leonard Nimoy did the narration for vanilla Civ IV. Nimoy and Meier--quite the narrator tag team!

 

[bonafide11]

Civ IV to Civ IV BTS was 21 months (Oct 2005 to July 2007). Civ VI was released Oct 2016 and I very much doubt its AI will be fixed by this July. IMHO Civ V AI was never fixed by Firaxis.

But it wasn't with the release of BtS that it was fixed, it was one of the subsequent patches. And I believe they actually used code from one of the community members who improved the AI, if my memory serves me correctly. Granted that was many years and many beers ago, so I could be wrong.

 

[SammyKhalifa]

The CivIV AI is seriously overrated, and seems to get better and better with each passing year.

I mean it was okay enough for what it set out to do, but even that wasn't until the end of its development (as others have said).

 

[Uberfrog]

But it wasn't with the release of BtS that it was fixed, it was one of the subsequent patches. And I believe they actually used code from one of the community members who improved the AI, if my memory serves me correctly. Granted that was many years and many beers ago, so I could be wrong.

Yeah, BtS wasn't complete until patch 3.19 which, as a quick dig in the forums indicates, was released in June 2009, a couple of years after the expansion. And you're quite right that many of the AI fixes were adapted from an unofficial patch.

I don't think it's useful to compare timescales that closely though, but I would be very pleasantly surprised if Civ VI is still being patched two years after the final expansion is launched!

 

[bonafide11]

The CivIV AI is seriously overrated, and seems to get better and better with each passing year.

I mean it was okay enough for what it set out to do, but even that wasn't until the end of its development (as others have said).

That made me laugh. I was very active here in the forums back during Civ IV's days, and I remember how often people complained about the AI back then. I was surprised to see how much people have started to praise Civ IV's AI now. It's probably a combination of rose colored glasses and a state of how bad the AI is now.

 

[Japper007]

The CivIV AI is seriously overrated, and seems to get better and better with each passing year.

I mean it was okay enough for what it set out to do, but even that wasn't until the end of its development (as others have said).

Yeah the civ IV AI was pretty terrible, but it does give a perfect example of how scripting mandatory behaviour can at least make it challenging. F.e civ 4 AI doesn't know how to escort settler, it is just set to always send a unit along, same for city defenders it doesn't "assess the situation" like Civ 5 or 6 AI, it just keeps ~3 defenders in every every city.
It also gives examples of how certain specific AI-only cheats are better than just blanket resource handicaps. F.e the civ 4 AI barely pays any maintenance for cities and troops, which makes it far better at expanding without crushing its economy. Now this lesson was applied in civ 6, with AI combat strenght bonuses (to compensate for its bad positioning), a starting army to more quickly kill City States (as it could otherwise never match the human speed in this) and a few Settlers on higher difficulties to keep up with human Rex-ing.

In short, civ 4 AI isn't an example of good AI, merely how you can make a mediocre one work to present challenge to the player.

 

[isau]

Yeah the civ IV AI was pretty terrible, but it does give a perfect example of how scripting mandatory behaviour can at least make it challenging. F.e civ 4 AI doesn't know how to escort settler, it is just set to always send a unit along, same for city defenders it doesn't "assess the situation" like Civ 5 or 6 AI, it just keeps ~3 defenders in every every city.
It also gives examples of how certain specific AI-only cheats are better than just blanket resource handicaps. F.e the civ 4 AI barely pays any maintenance for cities and troops, which makes it far better at expanding without crushing its economy. Now this lesson was applied in civ 6, with AI combat strenght bonuses (to compensate for its bad positioning), a starting army to more quickly kill City States (as it could otherwise never match the human speed in this) and a few Settlers on higher difficulties to keep up with human Rex-ing.

In short, civ 4 AI isn't an example of good AI, merely how you can make a mediocre one work to present challenge to the player.

Agreed. Civ 4's AI is also wide open for anyone to evaluate. It's all right there in the downloadable C++ packages. Basically in Civ 4 the AI is just a top-down design that implements hard rules. And it works basically fine. Civ games do not require a super advanced AI. They require an AI that posits a challenge.

I don't think I've seen an AI in Civ 6 fire arrows from a ranged unit stationed in a city center or encampment more than once or twice. The patch notes say they are more likely to do this now, but I still have yet to see it.


IMO the most disappointing thing about the Civ 6 AI is that many of the needed changes are already available to Firaxis via the Civ 5 Vox Populi mod. They may feel weird about copying code directly, and I don't blame them. But that mod pretty much lays out exactly how to make the tactical AI function.