Does anyone else lose interest?

[rugger11]

I love the game, but I rarely finish one. The early part is great with the exploration and trying to figure out what is going to happen. Then comes the initial battles and conflicts with your neighbors. Then I usually hit a little bit of a cold war stage when I am building and preparing for war. Finally I get in that life or death struggle and I either get smoked and want to start over or I wipe out a reasonably strong CIV or 2 and then I lose interest. There may be 4-5 more rivals left, but by then I usually have a huge lead and it is just a matter of building enough units to wipe out enough rivals to win.

To me, there is a culminating point where your survival is hanging in the balance and you either make it or you don't (the last war elephant attacks your last longbowman in that city). From there, you either stumble around as a weak little sister and hope to survive or you kick some serious butt.

I usually start a new game after that point.

Maybe I need to play against some humans.

 

[Elandal]

I've lost interest several times when I feel the game is decided. Sometimes I've decided to still continue to the win I feel I can get with least playtime (usually space - it's quite straightforward and doesn't require much computing power).
Now, with BetterAI, I have found the city build governor to be fine for less important cities. This removes some amount of "work" I need to do, allowing me to concentrate on doing whatever I want to do. Which means I don't lose interest that easily but am more likely to continue the game to the end.

 

[Harald500]

I love the game, but I rarely finish one. The early part is great with the exploration and trying to figure out what is going to happen. Then comes the initial battles and conflicts with your neighbors. Then I usually hit a little bit of a cold war stage when I am building and preparing for war. Finally I get in that life or death struggle and I either get smoked and want to start over or I wipe out a reasonably strong CIV or 2 and then I lose interest. There may be 4-5 more rivals left, but by then I usually have a huge lead and it is just a matter of building enough units to wipe out enough rivals to win.

To me, there is a culminating point where your survival is hanging in the balance and you either make it or you don't (the last war elephant attacks your last longbowman in that city). From there, you either stumble around as a weak little sister and hope to survive or you kick some serious butt.

I usually start a new game after that point.

Maybe I need to play against some humans.

I could not agreed more.
I usually play on marathon speed, wich is great in to the 13 hundreds, but then it gets to big; to many units, to many cities, and so on.
To answer your Q: Yes you need to play some humans.
I now play a game with one human and 13 AI's, and the motivation is better than ever before.
I love telling my vassal to attack a border city of my friend, and then SUPRISE him on the other front...

My friend is a bad looser, so i love to let him think it is a even game, and then suddenly my 20 bombers sweep in, and he is toast!

 

[Psyringe]

I kept my endgames interesting by playing on super-huge (modded) map sizes with 24 civilizations. With such a large map, there is a very high probability that some rivals will be competitive until the end. In my last game, Augustus had vassalized five other civs and was a military powerhouse. Saladin had grown very strong over time too, and Mansa Musa / Hatshepsut, who were teching like mad, had built a permanent alliance late in the game, pooling their resources for space ship building. It was fun until the end, and I only won because of my superior production. Next time I'll play with he BetterAI mod, which lets some AIs focus more on production. I'mcurious how this will work out.

If you've only got 7 rivals, it's fairly easy to get in a superior position, otr to stop another rival that's running away. On a truly huge map, you don't have the resources nor the time to stop everybody.

 

[Sisiutil]

If you've only got 7 rivals, it's fairly easy to get in a superior position, otr to stop another rival that's running away. On a truly huge map, you don't have the resources nor the time to stop everybody.

True--I recently played by first game on a huge map with only 10 rivals and still found there was just too much territory to try to conquer.

 

[Welnic]

You should use my game finishing service. Link in my signature. Or it should be. Game Finishing Service

 

[Dnomal]

I tend to lose interest as the game goes on, especially as technology snowballs, from grens --> infan ---> tanks.... it goes on and on, i usually win or give up on a game before infantry are developed.

Although i do usually play on small maps so there's even less to discover/rule/conquer/destroy.

 

[CivMonger]

hehe, I tend to fight a couple wars to absorb two or three nearby civs and then sit tight and improve my civ until about infantry or so. Depending on the map type I generally like my late game wars with Art/bombers/battleships for bombarding, then tanks/marines for attacking, and ifnantry for def.

 

[SWETBANG]

I love the game, but I rarely finish one. The early part is great with the exploration and trying to figure out what is going to happen. Then comes the initial battles and conflicts with your neighbors. Then I usually hit a little bit of a cold war stage when I am building and preparing for war. Finally I get in that life or death struggle and I either get smoked and want to start over or I wipe out a reasonably strong CIV or 2 and then I lose interest. There may be 4-5 more rivals left, but by then I usually have a huge lead and it is just a matter of building enough units to wipe out enough rivals to win.

To me, there is a culminating point where your survival is hanging in the balance and you either make it or you don't (the last war elephant attacks your last longbowman in that city). From there, you either stumble around as a weak little sister and hope to survive or you kick some serious butt.

I usually start a new game after that point.

Maybe I need to play against some humans.

I've always been like that, well in the past civ games. I don't think I've ever got into the modern era in any of the games. Not past 1950 anyway.

Civ2/Civ3 is one of my favourite games of all time. Strangely I bought Civ4 about a year ago I think, only played it a few days and haven't played it since.

I think when i play it again in a minute, it will be like a new game again. The starting point of Civ is always the best for me, exploring new territory, not knowing where your enemies are etc.

 

[mjd260]

I lose interest when it takes longer for turns to load than it does for the time I get to play. last night it took 15 minutes to load the game... I'm doing fairly well and would like to finish, but I don't know if I have the patience anymore.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

My only suggestion to help reduce end-game 'malaise' is maybe looking at Sevo's Mastery Mod. It takes a more graduated and holistic approach to winning the game. i.e. instead of winning when you launch your spaceship, this is just one facet in overall victory. The diplo victory side is still a little underdeveloped but, hopefully, it will eventually get a thorough work-through! Also, at the risk of giving a shameless plug for a future mod of mine-I believe my ideology mod will help make the later game a bit more intriguing (once its finished, that is). Ideologies will work in a similar fashion to religions, but won't start appearing until the late Renaissance-so wars of ideology can become a focus of interest in the late-game stage.
Oh and who can forget JDog's Revolution mod. With this mod in play, victory is no longer a 'cut-and dried' affair-no matter how far in front you or your opponents may be. This one I HIGHLY recommend.
Last of all, check out the CCCP development thread by Impaler, a lot of the changes made by him and other modders have been compiled into a single mod, which makes for a fun and exciting game experience.
Beyond these suggestions, I can only urge you to check out the Creation & Customization forum. The incredible moddability of this game means that there is always something new and exciting getting posted that can meet your needs for a fun gaming experience-and the modders are usually happy to help in merging multiple mods IF you ask nicely .

Aussie_Lurker.

 

[Zunk]

Yes, I loose interest in the game after awhile since the turns takes looonger and looooooonger

 

[acidsatyr]

the reason I lose interest in end game (or mid game) is because civ4 doesn't offer comebacks, i.e. you pretty much know you'r going to win or loose, no suprises in the last moment.

 

[jray]

Save up some money for a new desktop computer. I recently switched from a new 2005 Dell laptop to a new 2007 Dell desktop (both pretty much next-to-top tier for their times), and the difference is staggering.

On the laptop, I need to wait about 3 seconds for anything to happen after pressing every single freaking button past the year 1800. On the desktop, everything is instantaneous, at least up to 1950 or so (the most modern year I've reached so far).

You could also try [MODCOMP] AIAutoPlay, although I've never tried it and so couldn't vouch for it. As long as you're not using any mods that alter the savegame files, all you'd need to do is rename the AIAutoPlay mod to the same name as your own mod, load your game into it, and auto-play to the end. Hopefully the computer won't totally screw things up for you... but if it's just a matter of waiting for a UN vote or for some spaceship parts, I bet it will come through for you.

 

[Clovis]

I agree with acidsatyr. However, I personally enjoy building cities more than anything else, so I don't really lose interest. My problem is I'm not confident, patient or organized enough to wage war effectively. That is, in CivII (the only one I own.)

 

[ThERat]

the reason I lose interest in end game (or mid game) is because civ4 doesn't offer comebacks, i.e. you pretty much know you'r going to win or loose, no suprises in the last moment.

Indeed one of the very big drawbacks of CIV. A game such as rise of the pheonix (SG headed by Greebley) where we had AW on deity until 1AD followed by a takeover of the world is impossible in CIV. We were almost wiped off the planet by 1AD but made a fantastic comeback. This was possible and huge fun in C3C.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

Look, I know its no help for those of you who prefer the pleasure of playing vanilla CivIV or Warlords, but I think my above suggestions would help you guys a LOT!!!! Seriously, try them out and see how the improve your gameplay experience!

Aussie_Lurker.

 

[onedreamer]

the reason I lose interest in end game (or mid game) is because civ4 doesn't offer comebacks, i.e. you pretty much know you'r going to win or loose, no suprises in the last moment.

ditto !

Save up some money for a new desktop computer. I recently switched from a new 2005 Dell laptop to a new 2007 Dell desktop (both pretty much next-to-top tier for their times), and the difference is staggering.

The difference is due to the dates not so much due to the notebook or desktop PC. Btw, in these last 2 years, notebooks improved in their performances much more than desktop PCs.

 

[SkippyT]

you need to use a good mix of mods, single player and multiplayer.
Then I never get bored

 

[Carver]

If Civ really did offer a lot of opportunity for comebacks a lot of people would be complaining. Remebered how POed people got when spearmen defeated tanks? If the human expanded and built up a powerful nation over the course of 1/2 or 2/3 of a game, and then an itty bitty AI popped up and became equally or more powerful, many people would be calling BS. People already talk about the AI creating units "out of thin air," LOL.