Civ4 pet peeves

[anti_strunt]

Still, it's backwards. Nobody would move to Vegas if there are no jobs, no matter how much food is available.

That's another big thing, but it's so fundamental to how Civ operates it tends to just slip me by... Excepting some very specific slingshots, everything is so fundamentally linear. The capital of most Civilisations was founded and has been in continuous operation as a centre of government since 4000 BC.

Europe - as in a bunch of roaming barbarians invading a Civilisation around the start of the Medieval era and then proceeding to out-tech the rest of the world - simply cannot happen because the world of Civ is so linear. The explosive expansion of the Arabian empire? The rise of America to world power?

Looking at the post-game replay sometimes reminds me more of watching bacterial cultures bumping into each other in a Petri dish than anything out of world history...

 

[TheMeInTeam]

^ The entirety of history and all relevant considerations go way beyond the scope of something a game could possibly encompass.

The problem is when implemented mechanics go wonky or control poorly.

 

[Linkman226]

Concerning making a better catapult system- I'm sure DCM could be adapted fairly easily for that.

 

[strijder20]

^ The entirety of history and all relevant considerations go way beyond the scope of something a game could possibly encompass.

The problem is when implemented mechanics go wonky or control poorly.

*Cough cough* RFC *Cough cough*

And the RevDCM modcomponent works pretty well too.
It still doesn't implement teching, and tech spreading enough - when the knowledge how to make gunpowder reached Italy, it quickly spread to the rest of Europe - they didn't give 'other techs' to Italy to get that knowledge.
So in general, it's impossible - but you can get closer than unmodded Civ Bts does.

 

[Linkman226]

RFC's pretty much as good as it gets.

And the Dawn of Civilization and *shameless self-promotion* Synthesis * shameless self-promotion* mod mods make it even better.

 

[Skallagrimson]

Concerning making a better catapult system- I'm sure DCM could be adapted fairly easily for that.

I never could understand why Civ's developers thought that in medieval times catapults would all self-destruct if they missed their targets. That's nowhere near "verisimilitude", their stated benchmark. Air bombardment and ship bombardment should be the same mechanic used for cats and trebs, cannons, etc. And instead of "intercept" you get "miss" and of course the good ole flanking damage by cavs.

 

[Nikolai Dneppen]

My biggest pet pev is this BS.

 

[elohssa]

1. Load times. It takes appallingly long to load a game that's even moderately progressed. Civ3 loads are instantaneous by comparison. Why have all this Python and other extraneous code that obviously only increases load times without increasing functionality? And it's not just load times, but wait times. I get so bored with the "Waiting for other civilizations" that I'll often abandon a decent game in the 1700s just to start a new one so I can actually *do* things rather than sit around waiting.

I never had problems with these. Load times aren't great (about a minute in modern era) but it's not a game breaker. The time between turns even on huge maps in modern era is rarely over 10 seconds. In war it can be up to 30 seconds (on huge map only) which is tedious but not game-breaking. My advice is to either play smaller maps or get a better processor. Mine is 1.83GHZ dual core.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Load times aren't great (about a minute in modern era) but it's not a game breaker.

If you average 30 second turn times (1 minute late game, <30 seconds early) you spend hours per game staring at the screen. Literally hours.

That's "not a game breaker" if you actually like staring at a wall instead of playing the game, but it is, in reality, a tremendous cost and the reason a LOT of people don't routinely play huge maps.

For reference: I'm using a much better machine than yours (closer to 3.0 ghz processor dual core, 4 gb RAM, 1 GB graphics card) and there has not been a single game I've posted on youtube where I did not lose at least 30 minutes to an hour to turn rollovers, on a STANDARD map. On a huge map it's always hours, and for you it is MORE than me. I hypothesize that people tolerate this only because the waste of time is spread out, but it is nevertheless devastating and very, very few titles force plays to spend anywhere NEAR the %time doing nothing while playing that civ IV and V force.

Not sure what lags IV the most. Maybe it's trade route calcs (which aren't but should be cached when they don't change). Maybe it's unit movements off-screen (AI moves units one at a time, but the game ANIMATES this, even off screen, meaning immortal/deity AI moving 100's of units isn't fast). Regardless, it's an insult to player intellect to suggest that somehow running 100,000's or even millions of RNG outcomes should take anywhere near a minute. Devs waste our time in this regard because they flat out don't care, and I find that obnoxious.

 

[elohssa]

If you average 30 second turn times (1 minute late game, <30 seconds early) you spend hours per game staring at the screen. Literally hours.

I didn't say I average 30 second turn times. Only 1 minute load times for a save in late game.

My turn times are maximum of 30 secs but that is only in a mass war on a huge map in the late game (with nukes and aircraft everywhere). In a mass war (late game) on a standard map it's 15 secs max. Which admittedly isn't great but wars don't last forever and I have never quit a game due to load times. Maybe your times are higher than they should be because of recording software etc. Next time I play I might actually take note of how much my time between turns is but I am pretty sure it's very low except for late game wars. Also I read somewhere that CivIV doesn't take advantage of dual core, I could be wrong though.

 

[K.Murx]

Regardless, it's an insult to player intellect to suggest that somehow running 100,000's or even millions of RNG outcomes should take anywhere near a minute. Devs waste our time in this regard because they flat out don't care, and I find that obnoxious.

10^8 sequential calls to random.random() in python take approximately 40 seconds, with nothing else but a stripped down Linux (no gui) running.
Now add concurrency with a lot of other stuff (windows, antivirus, the rest of the game, etc.), the need to actually track the results, etc. and 10^6 RNG calls in about a minute does not seem that bad.

(Kids these days... When we wanted random numbers, we had to roll the dice ourselves.)

 

[Manfred Belheim]

I've never really had an issue with the load times. Yeah it can take a couple of minutes maybe (probably more like a minute most of the time) to boot up the game and load the save when it's a late game save, but that's only once per playing session so it barely registers. Turn times in the late game can take around a minute sometimes, but turning "show friendly moves" off can speed that up a lot. And if I've just spent 5 minutes on my own turn, I can wait 20-30 seconds for the AIs to play. Yes it adds up over the course of a game, but sometimes you just have to accept that the AI actually has to think about things a bit and it's not going to get done in the click of a mouse, it's not a big deal really. For the record my laptop is 6 years old too and wasn't amazing at the time (1.6Ghz).

Deserts - again I don't really mind them at all. If you use a map script that produces a patchwork look (like Terra does to some extent) then you can often end up with the odd desert square dotted around getting in the way and being annoying, but other scripts that produce large areas aren't so bad I don't think. PerfectWorld2 produces MASSIVE deserts, but I still find it fun to play. It's interesting not to have countries all butting up against each other with verdant grassland all over, but to have regions of harsh land inbetween them that armies have to cross. After all, more than half the map (usually) is ocean which you can't do anything with at all. Make the most of the land you can use, and then the "useless" land inbetween acts to shape the world, space the civs and add a bit of strategy to things, just like the oceans do. Plus you can often get a desert outpost city to provide something. You'll usually find some hills to put windmills on for food, or there'll be some gold around to give a good income. They stay small, but that just adds a bit of variety. Not all cities should have a population of 18. AND if all else fails, just find a map script that doesn't give you lots of desert.

 

[plasmacannon]

...
(Kids these days... When we wanted random numbers, we had to roll the dice ourselves.)

Ahh, the good old days of 4-siders, 6-siders, 8-siders, 10-siders, 12-siders, and 20- siders. Nothing like that 00 moment, or the 01 moment to make or ruin your decision.

 

[elohssa]

Deserts - again I don't really mind them at all. If you use a map script that produces a patchwork look (like Terra does to some extent) then you can often end up with the odd desert square dotted around getting in the way and being annoying, but other scripts that produce large areas aren't so bad I don't think. PerfectWorld2 produces MASSIVE deserts, but I still find it fun to play. It's interesting not to have countries all butting up against each other with verdant grassland all over, but to have regions of harsh land inbetween them that armies have to cross. After all, more than half the map (usually) is ocean which you can't do anything with at all. Make the most of the land you can use, and then the "useless" land inbetween acts to shape the world, space the civs and add a bit of strategy to things, just like the oceans do. Plus you can often get a desert outpost city to provide something. You'll usually find some hills to put windmills on for food, or there'll be some gold around to give a good income. They stay small, but that just adds a bit of variety. Not all cities should have a population of 18. AND if all else fails, just find a map script that doesn't give you lots of desert.

This is a good point. Approximately 90% of the earth population lives on 10% of the land. Having said that as Las Vegas shows, desert cities can become quite powerful if corporations are used.

 

[Archon_Wing]

The fact that Samurai require Iron only. They can't even build regular Macemen if you don't have iron then, which absolutely blows. And if Toku wasn't crap enough already. :/

Also, the "worst enemy" nonesense seems to be just another way of penalizing the player. Being a worst enemy doesn't mean they'll attack their worst enemy, but it does give them the excuse to give you penalties for trading with them and suddenly you're they're worst enemy (even when they didn't know you were!)

It's most hilarious in a continents game, some guy comes over and hates the people for some reason and you get a -4 automatically. Because clearly that is worse than declaring war on them, nuking them, or razing their cities.

The worst was some random game yesterday when Shaka was across the continent, and hated Brennus. Yet he still goes attack me in the BCs and bribes Qin on it too? Lawl wut. And the worst part was that their armies weren't strong enough to do anything except pillage my mine and suicide into the city guarded by 3 archers, 2 axeman, and a wall. Once I bribed Brennus into this, I never saw any more units from Shaka; until I bend Qin over with Cav and Qin peacevassals to Shaka. Of course! And Shaka gets owned too. All for nothing except giving me great generals and slowing down my tech pace while the other continent trades like hurr hurr.

But oh wait, I have a great ally with Brennus right? After all +5 for mutual struggle, +6 for religion, +3 for civics. + for trade relations and resources, and I forgot how many for giving them help. We're best friends right? He's sure friendly and greets me well. Wait, why won't he sign a defensive pact? Oh wait, he hates my vassals. I forgot. I enslaved our former enemies, and he now hates me for that.... but he'd rather just lie about it.

So anyhow, I somehow win a diplomatic victory because it's between me and brennus, and the other people who are mildly pleased with me vote me in. Actually I didn't even know why they voted for me, maybe they liked my vassals?

Although it's kinda hilarious if you think about it. The best way to get people's votes is to conquer their best friends. Right... It's only a -2 for declaring on them after all right? Better that then to get owned by averaging.

I win a diplo victory where my best friend probably wouldn't vote for me even if he wasn't eligible. Anyhow, that was really a game where everything ******** with the game really did happen. I think I need a break from Civ.

It's really kinda sad such a good game can be ruined by trash features like this. There should be options to only allow vassals through capitulation, disable only the AP OR UN, and such....

 

[TheMeInTeam]

10^8 sequential calls to random.random() in python take approximately 40 seconds, with nothing else but a stripped down Linux (no gui) running.
Now add concurrency with a lot of other stuff (windows, antivirus, the rest of the game, etc.), the need to actually track the results, etc. and 10^6 RNG calls in about a minute does not seem that bad.

(Kids these days... When we wanted random numbers, we had to roll the dice ourselves.)

I'm not so young.

Maybe I'm so old I've forgotten and we actually rolled the 20 sided dice 8 times when 1 would suffice, similar to how things work these days.

(In reality, "extra" dice rolls probably occurred because we didn't like the first one ).

 

[Jouzou]

My pet peeve is the tutorial. It does a decent job explaining the game's mechanics, but it teaches you a horrible strategy. First of all, it recommends building a warrior first. When it's finished, it tells you to fortify it in the capital and build a scout for...well, scouting. When the scout is finished, Sid instructs you to chase huts. Is it finally the time to build a worker? No! Now we want some culture and need an obelisk. Considering how crucial the first turns are for the rest of the game, this is bound to lock new players to the lower difficulty levels until they figure stuff out themselves or find CFC (luckily, for me it was the latter case).

 

[Skallagrimson]

My pet peeve is the tutorial. It does a decent job explaining the game's mechanics, but it teaches you a horrible strategy. First of all, it recommends building a warrior first. When it's finished, it tells you to fortify it in the capital and build a scout for...well, scouting. When the scout is finished, Sid instructs you to chase huts. Is it finally the time to build a worker? No! Now we want some culture and need an obelisk. Considering how crucial the first turns are for the rest of the game, this is bound to lock new players to the lower difficulty levels until they figure stuff out themselves or find CFC (luckily, for me it was the latter case).

That's a great idea for an epic mod: the "Better Strategy Tutorial".

Imagine.

"Now, chop all the trees in that BFC to generate workers and axemen. Okay, now to rush Shaka over to the east..."

 

[Jouzou]

Oh, here's another one: It's midgame and I finally switch to my neighbour's state religion to get diplo bonus with them (and to reap the benefits of OR/Theocracy/Pacifism in my cities) and they found Taoism or Islam and instantly convert.

A variation: I've shared a state religion with Civ X for the last 3000 years. They found a new religion and (surprise, surprise) instantly convert. That, I could tolerate, but then they accuse me of "falling under the sway of a heathen religion".

I'm not saying that religion is a bad game element, but I hate how whimsical the AI can be about it, considering how important diplo factor it is.

 

[Steve the Noble]

Yeah, late game performance is an obvious one. As is often the case in software development, performance does take a back seat to other quality aspects of the game.

As for "waiting-for-other-civs" time, disabling the two game options to show enemy moves and show friendly moves will help. Also disable battle animations.