Just got Civ IV, but I'm an old-time Civ I-III player. My intent is always to play Huge-Deity-Slow games, with everything set as difficult as possible (random maps, climate, etc.). I like a challenge.
So far, I've been leaving games feet first, as they say. The old stand-by tactics of Civ III don't seem to work.
First observation: it takes way too long to build a settler for that to be the obvious first build that it generally was in prior versions.
Second observation: Barbarians in Civ IV are NASTY! I have tentatively (every adjustment I make is tentative, always ...) decided that Archery is a dire necessity (I'm thinking Bronze Working might substitute, and it is a much more useful tech, but too often I get it and there's no Copper to be had) and that the beginning warrior unit's role is to (a) survive, (b) get his five experience points from fighting animals (always aiming to be defending from the woods; from the woods on a hill against a Bear), (c) take Combat I and Cover as his promotions, and (d) go home and wait for the Huns. I'm thinking that if you have some good defensible points (read: hills with woods) in appropriate positions and the sea guarding at least 40% of your perifery, you might go for Woodsman I and II, and actually do a little exploring before you bring your unit home, but beware. The barbarian invasions seem to begin in earnest around 3000 BC, and they seem to begin all at once all over the place, so if you are not on the coast you can figure on having several simultaneous invasions from all sides. (If you want easy, there's always Chieftan level ...) My starting warrior tends to sneak around in the woods and run from the great Bear. I go for the goody huts, but I certainly don't think it's the best use of the unit to try to get each of these that you can. With a scout, I would try to explore and get goody huts, since a scout has no real combat value except against animals.
I haven't settled on a leader yet. I started with Louis XIV (Industrious and got two relatively expensive free techs that are also the best start toward Writing), then went to Frederick the Great (decided I wanted Hunting and Mining and that Industrious was not the killer trait that it had been in Civ III), then went to Qin Shi Huang (decided that Financial is the nearest thing to a killer trait in Civ IV, that Agriculture was more often useful than Hunting, and that Industrious, while not killer, was still not too bad), and most recently Washington (decided, for reasons to come, that Organized was a good trait to have). (Once I think I know how to play the game a little bit, I'll randomize the leader as well.)
I like the game quite a bit. As advertised, Firaxis seems to have done a good job of removing the strategies and tactics that dominate all others. I still don't know the game well enough to be able to say with any certainty what does and doesn't work with my playing style (I like to win by research and productivity rather than warfare, and I particularly dislike "going Mongol" as a strategy - AIs are generally pretty bad at warfare, so I consider that almost cheating; may re-evaluate if I ever get into multiplayer Civ IV).
In particular, I still am not comfortable with the additions of Cottages, Great People, religion, and most of all the maintenance cost calculation; I don't have a good feel for their value. Cottages seem to be very ripe for outside attack, providing as they do reward to their pillagers while crippling those who lose them if they have been relied upon very much.
I have built an Academy with Great Scientists, and that's obviously a nice thing, and I have built a Shrine with a Great Prophet (albeit on Monarch level; not having a lot of success founding religions on Deity level ...), and that's obviously a nice thing. Great Engineer, I can also see. Great Artists? Not so much, although I'm not clear on the free tech aspect and I don't go for Cultural Victory. Great Merchant? Nice, but something to alter your game play to get? Probably not.
I'm starting to get a feel for religion, but still not clear on its affect on diplomacy. Coreligionists seem to like each other better, but sometimes they still go to war.
I really got burned, however, on maintenance cost. I had what would have been a very good start in Civ III: small continent to myself with a close neighbor (who dropped a city on my continent, but that's expected); survived the Barbarian onslaught and even had them pinned down in a single city; and so I started filling up the continent with cities and preparing to sack the Barbarian city and for my dear neighbor's inevitable attack. What was I thinking?! I think I had an extravagent six cities and maybe a dozen units; really living high on the hog here. My civics were all still completely primitive, which no doubt contributed, but still ... My research kept getting reduced, finally to nothing, and then my cash started disappearing quickly. "Okay," I thought, "this isn't good, but the game seems to do all right at giving reasonable solutions to things going wrong." Not this time! I ran out of money, still having a negative cash flow, my units went "On strike," and I lost not the near-worthless Warrior sitting in my capitol, but the top-of-the-line axemen on their way to the Barbarian city! Apparently union seniority rules apply to units going "On strike!" Brilliant!
And of course, Deity level forcing one to play right at the ragged edge, I was nowhere near having anything that might mitigate the situation. I hadn't put anything into Cottages, and maybe doing that would have kept me from complete catastrophe, but mainly I think I had too many cities too far apart. I think my treasurer reported a cost of 6 for cities and 7 for distance, and at one point I think I was paying a coin or two for units. But I got completely bushwacked; the obvious tactic from prior versions of filling in blank space on the map with cities has had its feet cut out from under it. It kind of annoys me that the AI civilizations will just drop a city anywhere, and that is just not available to the player; I understand that I get the slowest, stupidest, most unruly population on the board at Deity level, but this seems like a difference of kind rather than just of degree.
So far, I've been leaving games feet first, as they say. The old stand-by tactics of Civ III don't seem to work.
First observation: it takes way too long to build a settler for that to be the obvious first build that it generally was in prior versions.
Second observation: Barbarians in Civ IV are NASTY! I have tentatively (every adjustment I make is tentative, always ...) decided that Archery is a dire necessity (I'm thinking Bronze Working might substitute, and it is a much more useful tech, but too often I get it and there's no Copper to be had) and that the beginning warrior unit's role is to (a) survive, (b) get his five experience points from fighting animals (always aiming to be defending from the woods; from the woods on a hill against a Bear), (c) take Combat I and Cover as his promotions, and (d) go home and wait for the Huns. I'm thinking that if you have some good defensible points (read: hills with woods) in appropriate positions and the sea guarding at least 40% of your perifery, you might go for Woodsman I and II, and actually do a little exploring before you bring your unit home, but beware. The barbarian invasions seem to begin in earnest around 3000 BC, and they seem to begin all at once all over the place, so if you are not on the coast you can figure on having several simultaneous invasions from all sides. (If you want easy, there's always Chieftan level ...) My starting warrior tends to sneak around in the woods and run from the great Bear. I go for the goody huts, but I certainly don't think it's the best use of the unit to try to get each of these that you can. With a scout, I would try to explore and get goody huts, since a scout has no real combat value except against animals.
I haven't settled on a leader yet. I started with Louis XIV (Industrious and got two relatively expensive free techs that are also the best start toward Writing), then went to Frederick the Great (decided I wanted Hunting and Mining and that Industrious was not the killer trait that it had been in Civ III), then went to Qin Shi Huang (decided that Financial is the nearest thing to a killer trait in Civ IV, that Agriculture was more often useful than Hunting, and that Industrious, while not killer, was still not too bad), and most recently Washington (decided, for reasons to come, that Organized was a good trait to have). (Once I think I know how to play the game a little bit, I'll randomize the leader as well.)
I like the game quite a bit. As advertised, Firaxis seems to have done a good job of removing the strategies and tactics that dominate all others. I still don't know the game well enough to be able to say with any certainty what does and doesn't work with my playing style (I like to win by research and productivity rather than warfare, and I particularly dislike "going Mongol" as a strategy - AIs are generally pretty bad at warfare, so I consider that almost cheating; may re-evaluate if I ever get into multiplayer Civ IV).
In particular, I still am not comfortable with the additions of Cottages, Great People, religion, and most of all the maintenance cost calculation; I don't have a good feel for their value. Cottages seem to be very ripe for outside attack, providing as they do reward to their pillagers while crippling those who lose them if they have been relied upon very much.
I have built an Academy with Great Scientists, and that's obviously a nice thing, and I have built a Shrine with a Great Prophet (albeit on Monarch level; not having a lot of success founding religions on Deity level ...), and that's obviously a nice thing. Great Engineer, I can also see. Great Artists? Not so much, although I'm not clear on the free tech aspect and I don't go for Cultural Victory. Great Merchant? Nice, but something to alter your game play to get? Probably not.
I'm starting to get a feel for religion, but still not clear on its affect on diplomacy. Coreligionists seem to like each other better, but sometimes they still go to war.
I really got burned, however, on maintenance cost. I had what would have been a very good start in Civ III: small continent to myself with a close neighbor (who dropped a city on my continent, but that's expected); survived the Barbarian onslaught and even had them pinned down in a single city; and so I started filling up the continent with cities and preparing to sack the Barbarian city and for my dear neighbor's inevitable attack. What was I thinking?! I think I had an extravagent six cities and maybe a dozen units; really living high on the hog here. My civics were all still completely primitive, which no doubt contributed, but still ... My research kept getting reduced, finally to nothing, and then my cash started disappearing quickly. "Okay," I thought, "this isn't good, but the game seems to do all right at giving reasonable solutions to things going wrong." Not this time! I ran out of money, still having a negative cash flow, my units went "On strike," and I lost not the near-worthless Warrior sitting in my capitol, but the top-of-the-line axemen on their way to the Barbarian city! Apparently union seniority rules apply to units going "On strike!" Brilliant!
And of course, Deity level forcing one to play right at the ragged edge, I was nowhere near having anything that might mitigate the situation. I hadn't put anything into Cottages, and maybe doing that would have kept me from complete catastrophe, but mainly I think I had too many cities too far apart. I think my treasurer reported a cost of 6 for cities and 7 for distance, and at one point I think I was paying a coin or two for units. But I got completely bushwacked; the obvious tactic from prior versions of filling in blank space on the map with cities has had its feet cut out from under it. It kind of annoys me that the AI civilizations will just drop a city anywhere, and that is just not available to the player; I understand that I get the slowest, stupidest, most unruly population on the board at Deity level, but this seems like a difference of kind rather than just of degree.
Then again I don't have the time to play many games.
But I got Archery and managed to build an Archer and have him promoted through fighting animals (I'd normally go with City Garrison I and II for an Archer, but since this one was wandering around anyway and I figured I'd need protection for Workers, I made him Combat I and Cover). And the Barbarian onslaught was not a problem at all -- by the time Axemen were coming, I had added the Shock promotion to this same unit, and as the Barbarians predictibly used the Donald Rumsfeld theory of warfare ("Fight with the army you have"), they quickly were reduced to bloodstains at the gates of my cities.
