Civilization 4: Age of Empires 2 TBS edition

[Eyes Of Night]

When I first started playing this game I thought it was the greatest game ever. I was lost in all the new terrain improvements and the new unit upgrades and all the bells and whistles. As I play it more and more now I realize that it is just make up on a cheap whore. Civilization 4 is in fact Age of Empires 2 Turn Based Edition. Let me explain before I become irreversably mauled by a horde of fanboys.

I played civ2 for 10 years, I loved the game and I was number 1 on the ladder for 3 years straight. I played Age of Empires 2: The Conquerors for 4 years and I was a top US player. I know both games extremely well. Where to begin?

First the combat system in civ4 is very different in that there is no longer a defense value, it is just a general strength value that is modified by upgrades and defensive bonuses. In addition you now have a rock, paper scissors system, just like in AOC where you have the counter system. The problem comes in with the fact that Civ4 isn't AOC...obvious right? Well the counter system in AOC worked because AOC had this thing called unit micro; it was a god damn TBS game. You had spears being microed against scouts, archers against spears, skirms against archers, etc. Well in civ4 there isn't that, the unit that is attacking automatically attacks the unit that counters it in the defending stack making the counter system completely mindless. In addition we lack the features that made TBS...well, strategy. We don't have ZOC, we don't have offensive values and defensive values. We have just one flat rate with insane defensive values awarded to units in cities. You're talking 25% for fortification, 60% for city bonus, 20% for each city defense upgrade on archers, and we aren't even talking about a city with walls and on a hill. Obviously if you do the math you'll see that the city raider upgrade isn't **** compared to the defensive bonus. In comes the catapult, the unit we all screamed was useless in civ3. Now it does collateral damage to stacks, and it just happens to be the ONLY way to defeat a stack. Are you with me? Yes, that means you can't take any properly defended cities until you get construction which is about half way through a typical 150 turn limit game on Quick. So now you have a very obvious "strategy" evolving which I like to call the stack and cat. Just throw together a mass of units and march right on in. Oh, and don't forget to use a "combined arms" force in order to "counter" their units; according to some of the beta testers this is where the real skill lies. So what happens if, god forbid, the defender decides he'll throw catapults in too? Well...don't bother taking the city. Try what's called a "choke" and ummm...you know...choke his economy. Real effective. Basically you have a really neat looking combat system with all these fancy upgrades that really do nothing. Defense is king in this game except very early on which brings me to my next point.

Rushing...the hallmark of RTS games. While this isn't a bad thing, the difference is that in RTS games you have this thing called economy that slows down your rush. In Civ4 you have this thing called luck of the strategic resources that determines whether you can rush, defend a rush, or die to a rush. In addition, without ZOC you can't play map control or fortify that weak warrior on a hill and hope to defeat a chariot. Basically just hope you have the resources to stop the rush, or hope you have the resources to do a rush yourself. Since expansion is really difficult you can't try to outexpand the guy. Your options are so limited it's ridiculous. I can't put into words how idiotic I feel the developers are. What were you thinking? You got rid of things that make up the strategy in TBS games (ZOC, offensive and defensive values, map control through terrain) and then combined it with features from AOC (rushing, counter units) but without the skill that made those kinds of things fun to end up with this bland mass that makes gaining any sort of lead on your opponent impossible. It gets better.

The point system is huge in MP play. Points determine who wins the game when the turns run out. Well the way they set it up makes it so that even the worst player in the world will still stay in the game. Yes, that's right, all you have to do is build a few cities, throw out some workers and throw them on automate, and put units your ciites and you will hang at least half way through the game until the guy gets catapults. Why? Because military has no bearing on points. In addition, culture and city size are huge point gainers. So not only can you not expand much faster than the other guy, but you can't kill him through military and now he can even win just by sitting back and growing. FUN! "But there's so many options to improve your terrain, it's just so 'deep'!" Deep seems to be the word I hear alot, and I admit, I thought it was deep too. But when you get right down to it, you don't need more than maybe 1 or 2 farms to grow big. All you need is towns to keep up the upkeep and build a wonder or something. Hell, do whatever you want as long as you defend properly you'll stay in the game. So really the depth of the economy isn't really so deep after all.

Anyone who says this isn't based on age of empires is full of ****. Even the map seeder is the SAME as age of empires. I have already played 2 ladder games on the same "random" map. Basically what they wanted was to speed the game up and bring in the average player. They dumbed down the strategy and upped the military factor while having no military micro of a RTS...the perfect casual gamer game. I mean really it's genius as far as marketing goes. ES tried the same thing, they wanted to decrease the micro that was needed in the game in order to bring in the casual player...and Age of Mythology was born. Auto firing TC's, microless units, neato fancy graphics and units, and the wonderful auto-queue that took care of your economy for you. Pissed off all the loyal fans, but it sold pretty good.

So, in conclusion, this isn't really civilization anymore. This needs to have its own franchise because it's no longer a TBS...but it's not an RTS either. I find the game fun right now only because I am still trying to find that way to get ahead...but as time goes on and I realize there really is no way to get ahead I'm going to realize that there is no point to playing this game competitively multiplayer. Since the single player isn't really difficult at all...I have to ask myself if I will even be playing this game a month from now. What we have here is a cheap rip off of an old game combined with the basic ideas of another old game spliced together with some nifty graphics (at least by civ standards) and rushed out chalked full of bugs. Maybe I'm wrong and there's some secret to this game that adds all the depth and strategy in the world, but I just don't see it.

 

[Benjie]

Everybody knows that Sid played a whole bunch of strategy games prior to beginning development on Civilization IV. So what if he was inspired by various other games? That's how creation works.

 

[King Flevance]

Yeah but there is a line drawn between copied and inspired. I aint saying either way cause I didnt follow completely all of this. I fell short on what ZOC means but I followed some of it. I havent payed close attention to this kinda thing, I was a big AOC fan tho so I do follow it on a small level. It sounds valid. I will just wait and se the replies on here, and hope I dont get too lost if it goes in too deep into the structure.

 

[rikath22]

If AoC had been turn-based I'd still be playing it...

Good post though "Eyes of Night"

 

[Eyes Of Night]

ZOC means zones of control. In other words, if I control 1 tile, you can't walk past me directly by my tile. You have to go around me. You can't just run right by me into my city. It added in a whole new way of defending, and you didn't have any need for these ridiculous amounts of defensive bonuses. Having ZOC early on was huge in early warfare. Now...well...just run around and ummm...enjoy those huge defense bonuses as you run from tree to jungle to hill and i chase you waitnig for you to walk onto a non defense bonus land. At least in civ2 I could keep you from running into my base on top of defense terrain.

 

[Mîtiu Ioan]

Interesting point of view !!

Regards

P.S. : This "late possibility" to conquer cities seems similar with CTP system ...

 

[Evie]

"Ridiculous amounts of defensive bonuses", lol

The new bonus systems is far superior to the old "attack and defense" system. Not because of counter-units and the like - I could live without them - but because they open the way to true terrain and position-based warfare : that is, warfare where you have to chose your units accordign to to where the battle will be fought.

Back in Civ I, II, III, the only thing terrain did was give defensive bonus to all units. That's a *joke* that has nothing to do with warfare. Compare with Civ IV : Archers have extra bonuses defending hills and cities, knights (IIRC) have extra bonuses attacking in flatlands, etc. That's the way it should work : cavalry aren't intrinsically much stronger than archers, but if you allow them to take advantage of their speed (ie, attack you in flatlands), they *will* slaughter you. Archers, similarily, aren't intrinsically much stronger or weaker than spears - but when you give them cover, higher ground, or both, it's suicide to attack them.

The same can be said of attack and defense in general. A hail of arrow is equally deadly regardless of whether you're trying to *conquer* a territory, or *defend* it. A forest of pikes, same. However, what archers *CAN* do is be better able to take advantage of certain features in terrain - features like higher ground, or cover (houses).

Is this combat system perfect yet? No, there's room for improvement, as with all things. But, compared with Civ I-II-III, it's a clear step in the right direction.

(Regarding your point about defenses beign superior : Yeah. They are. And should be. Blitzkrieg-like war where one side completely bowl over the other in a matter of a few turns should NOT be a common occurence - far from it. They certainly were not in history. War should be a long, grueling battle. As for Catapult coming in too late in Quick games - yeah, that's a problem. Isn't that why you're allowed to start the game in any of the six tech eras, with all tech from former eras researched?)

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Zone-of-Control : I think what should be done with ZOC is that Garrisoned Cities and Garrisoned forts have ZOC; not individual wandering units. That way you *can* create areas that cannot be bypassed, but no further. The Civ II system gave too much power to Zoc (just move a unit in and you have ZOC!), where Civ III and IV go a little too strong against ZOC.

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Regarding Defensive-style culture-building play : Yeah, it is superior to simply building a military. And again - that's as it should be. The name of the game is NOT "Empire Earth" or any such thing. It's "Civilization". It's about building an empire, not about building an army. The army might be a MEAN to an end when building an empire - but culture and population are ends in themselves, making your empire one to last the test of time.

I'd say this is MORE civilization than any of the previous Civs before, closer to what Civ should be. And it certainly has little to do with RTSes other than the interface.

 

[Cironir]

Well the way they set it up makes it so that even the worst player in the world will still stay in the game. Yes, that's right, all you have to do is build a few cities ...

Why is this bad? The "worst player in the world" will not be able to win with this strategy, and he will still get steamrolled after some time by stronger players. But, yes, even weaker gamers will stay in the game for some time, and -- and this is the key -- probably enjoy themselves. In games like AoE, Warcraft, etcetera, newer or weaker players stand no chance. They get "owned", and most of them will never return to multiplayer after this happened a few times. If you do ladders, you are a very competitive and no doubt highly skilled player. Not everyone is, but everyone is entitled to an enjoyable experience when they are playing Civ4 online.

Why? Because military has no bearing on points. In addition, culture and city size are huge point gainers. So not only can you not expand much faster than the other guy, but you can't kill him through military and now he can even win just by sitting back and growing.

Military is the way to reduce the points of other players. You'll have to decide if you want to "expand much faster than the other guy", turtle for some time before you strike, or strive for balance in the earlier game. You can't expand as fast and also produce more military units than your opponent easily. It'll take actual strategy, but you can't just click faster than a weaker player and thus (and not because you have the better strategy) do five times more in the same time as him. You can also stay culturally smaller, focus on military research and poduction, then conquer your larger neigherbour who lacks the military to defend himself against you. Civ4 can be played in many different ways. There's a reason why there are different victory conditions.

I find the game fun right now only because I am still trying to find that way to get ahead...

Perhaps that is what you need to change to enjoy Civ4 in the long run. I play for the experience, not to "get ahead" of everyone else. It may well be that you are a professional player, but the majority isn't -- and games are also made for people like me who don't care whether they have killed the first civ after 3:18 minutes and hit 5000 points after 28:11 minutes.

Personally, I see very little that AoE2 and Civ4 have in common, besides the fact that they are both strategy games. I never enjoyed the AoE series because the game is mostly about tactics (memorizing click sequences is tactics), and it's entirely too much of a click-fest where people play with a stopwatch to clock how quickly they can achieve this or that. An average player will get zero enjoyment out of playing an AoE game online. With Civ4, someone who knows a bit strategy but isn't a pro player, will still be able to join a multiplayer game in half a year or a year and feel they had a good time ... rather than getting owned mercilessly in the first few minutes of every game they play.

PS.: I agree with the need for a ZoC, though. (Having played Kohan games way too much, ZoC is crucial for me also. )

 

[irishlamma]

mmm aoe2 good times good times
I'm starting to paly it again
anyone hear anything about aoe3?

 

[Cironir]

AoE3 has been out for a couple weeks or so. I looked at the demo and liked it as little as AoE2, so you might enjoy it, if you were a fan of the prequel.

 

[Ybother]

hmm..personally i feel that combat has greatly improved in IV. for once the units are actually intuitive to use. the combat bonuses add tatical fun to the game. as for cap, i thought its actually quite easy to get them since for the earlier turns, you don't have much to do and the timer is around 10sec.

I agree Forts should have ZoC. i would most likely ignore any units in forts right now and go after his city or start pillaging. Forts are pretty darn useless now.

 

[Ex-Cop]

Interesting post man. Some food for thought. I agree with you on the ZOC. Civ 2 I thought did it pretty well, except I think it would be best if ZOC only applied to fortified units. Adss a lot more strategy. Very disappointed its not it.
Hopefully some one smart will mod it some time in the future, and then it'll become the accepted must have mod of the game.

 

[Mercade]

Surely an interesting post, Eyes of Night. And welcome to CivFanatics, too.

Not having played AoE and now owning

yet, I cannot really judge, but it's surely food for thought.

 

[MeteorPunch]

Excellent post, Eyes of Night. They essentially dumbed everything down to give the AI more of a chance(without haveing to program any competant AI), and I agree that all the bonuses given to defenders is absurd.

 

[ThERat]

Eyes of Night, thanks for a detailed post. not having the game I appreciate all sorts of comments. And sicne you seem to have some credible experience, it makes me think a lot.

I used to play AoK and really loved it. However, so far I thought AoK and Civ are very different concepts. It should stay that way.

Maybe, the only salvation will be extensive modding.

 

[Thorn]

Why didn't they make turn-based an option for the AOE games? Or Rise of Nations? I suspect that more people would play them if they did. The slow down option and pause options in those games just aren't the same...

 

[AsnoT]

why aoe etc?

this really is a copy of US military "strategy". bomb the hell out of everything first, then go in with ground troops and steamroller them - so, not entirely unrealistic.

regarding the "who fights my attacking unit" issue - in RL you can't expect the best suited/strongest unit to be the defender either, the chance factor comes in.
which is why, when you're unlucky -

i agree to the dumbing down argument, that is also visible in the extreme reducing of game duration. if "epic" is twelve hours of gameplay, i don't even wanna KNOW what the faster speeds work out as.

 

[Arturus]

I must say, much of what you appear to like in the other Civs (particularly Civ III) is what I disliked the most about them. That being said, I will try to address some of your points.

First the combat system in civ4 is very different in that there is no longer a defense value, it is just a general strength value that is modified by upgrades and defensive bonuses.

This to me would make the combat system stronger and more realistic. One of my biggest problems in Civ III was the uselessness of the spearmen line in attacking (spearmen and pikemen). The Phalanx was a powerful attacking force in the ancient world yet with the attack/defend system, it stiffled the spearmen's use. In addition, archers are good multipurpose units. They are effective in attacking and in defending yet in Civ III, their attacking strength was emphasized and they were very weak on defence (an archer is a stronger defender and attacker than a warrior but this was not demonstrated). One strength value coupled with promotions allows for greater historical context and increases a player's creativity in regards to their combat strategies. More options means an increase in play styles. It is about time that they eliminated the attack/defence levels which limited a unit's use.

We don't have ZOC, we don't have offensive values and defensive values. We have just one flat rate with insane defensive values awarded to units in cities. You're talking 25% for fortification, 60% for city bonus, 20% for each city defense upgrade on archers, and we aren't even talking about a city with walls and on a hill. Obviously if you do the math you'll see that the city raider upgrade isn't **** compared to the defensive bonus.

Defence should be much stronger, that is reality. Attacking a castle, city, etc. generally requires a substantially larger force than what would be needed to defend it. A city on a hill with fortified archers on a wall should have a high defence value. That makes sense. The archers have greater range so they can fire more shots hence more casualties, and a wall is obviously a tough obstacle to get through. It is even harder with arrows raining down on you. That is realisitic. Experienced archers should cause even more casulaties.

But this doesn't pertain just to archers. A hill is a natural defensive advantage as are walls. Any unit can defend substantially better on one if they have to. Play out a seige of a walled city on a hill in your mind. Then compare this to what you know about strategy (ever read the Art of War?). You will know that in such a scenario, you shouldn't attack the city but rather cut it off and starve it out in order to drive the people out. Destroying improvements is a good way to start.

Walled, hilled cities are extremely difficult to take because they have enormous strategic advantages. This is simply realistic.

Defense is king in this game

Rightfully so. This is especially important for people who actually want to diversify their strategy and NOT constantly engage in warfare and the building of large armies. One thing I hated in Civ III was having to build large militaries to defend my land (particularly in multiplayer). This finally comes some security to people who want to do other things such as expand their culture and technology. I am a peaceful builder because I want a culturally successful Civ. I never fight a war unless I am attacked and I think I built maybe 20 modern armour units in the three and a half years I had Civ III. Warfare is not the only option. Making defence higher is not only realistic but it allows for different strategies and ways of playing the game. This is greatly needed. As you said, it is not Age of Empires, it is not Rome Total War, it is Civilization. Civilizations have more than armies. The great civilizations of the ancient world (Greece, Rome, Egypt, China, etc.) also had flourishing cultures. In Civ III, it was really one or the other and if you built cultural buildings, it wasn't for their cultural value but for their happiness value.

In Civ4 you have this thing called luck of the strategic resources that determines whether you can rush, defend a rush, or die to a rush.

Wasn't this the same for the very rare iron resources in Civ III (I know I hardly ever got iron at all. When I needed railroads I had to trade for it. My luck was terrible with resources.)

Basically just hope you have the resources to stop the rush, or hope you have the resources to do a rush yourself. Since expansion is really difficult you can't try to outexpand the guy. Your options are so limited it's ridiculous. I can't put into words how idiotic I feel the developers are.

Why do you have to rush? Destroying your opponent is not the only option in Civilization (it'd make it like any other strategy game then). Also, mega expansion is out which is also great. You shouldn't be able to mass produce cities, especially in the ancient world. That is not realistic. Your options were limited in Civ III because you HAD to do mass expansion if you wanted to succeed (even culturally or scientifically). Now you can do different things which promotes creativity, differing strategies, and differing experiences.

Because military has no bearing on points. In addition, culture and city size are huge point gainers. So not only can you not expand much faster than the other guy, but you can't kill him through military and now he can even win just by sitting back and growing. FUN!

Absolutely. This is a wonderful achievement for Firaxis and I am delighted that they finally chose to make aspects such as culture much more important and limit the unrealistic mega expansion and extremely militaristic gameplay.

So, in conclusion, this isn't really civilization anymore.

Strange. It seems to be more like what I would expect in a game called Civilization.

I find the game fun right now only because I am still trying to find that way to get ahead...but as time goes on and I realize there really is no way to get ahead I'm going to realize that there is no point to playing this game competitively multiplayer.

God forbid you have to play it competitively without being at war for most of the game. It sounds to me like you only play the military aspect as you consider it the most important. I consider it important in regards to defence but I think other aspects of the game such as the economy, scientific knowledge, culture, and trade are also extremely important. In other words, it appears that we a more balanced, multifaceted game. Sounds like something that one would expect for Civilization. Those who can do all of these things well with succeed, those who can't will not. It is time that the warmongers adapt to a new style of game play.

 

[Undisclosed]

Not only AoC has rock, paper, sissors. You should play other RTS games too. There are a lot of RTS games out there that uses the rock, paper, sissors system.

 

[Slax]

When I first started playing this game......Maybe I'm wrong and there's some secret to this game that adds all the depth and strategy in the world, but I just don't see it.

Excellent post. Can't agree or disagree, having not played the game, but I think some might say that they have tried to minimize the war aspects of the game while highlighting other aspects (economy, religion, diplomacy). Now if these latter features aren't strong enough, I could see how the whole game might seem dumbed down.