Fear and Loathing in Los Civforth

[baddabing]

Came in search of the civ dream no.4 and all we got was a play around.

I played from Civ II to this one and definatly civ 4 is the most fustrating game of the lot. What a waste of time, it's gameplay above the very begining level is obtuse and pointless. Instead of mr Sid raising the AI of the game to compete to a high human level, it merely handicaps the player and cheats amongst the other civs it plays. I dont know if you have noticed but when you play prince level suddenly the other civs JUMP 5-6 techs.( In a matter of 3 turns, especially in the medivial period) (and there are all the same ones...) And guess what you can't trade for any of the good ones. So okay you go to warfare, guess what the financial penalities for doing so in the game bankrupts you before you can get 3 units out the door. It's pathetic the fighting too, the defensive bonuses are way out of wack, that means tedious and repetative moves, and guess what by the time you even subdue one civ the other ones, are technologically ahead by 6-7 bounds, POINTLESS.The tech turns are two fast , even on Epic level. It's particually annoying to be constantly replacing units a couple of moves later when making them.

The AI cheats , it knows where your undefended cities are, even if they haven't been "discovered" It knows exactly what is in your city by the way it attacks and by the units it chooses. How the $^$* does a small number of cities mass huge number of troops, gain in Techs and still not be bankrput. Only one way by manipulating the code.

The wonders suk chunks, you get " zip pe de doo dar" for building them
In civ 3 the Great Library meant something ..tech advances ,in this game you get mainly cultural points, La de %$^% dar. The technical side of the game blows even bigger chunks, crashes slowing down with patch...<10% effective. And as for diplomacy, think civ 2 was more advanced, less options now than before. Unpredictable wacky Ai decisions once more

Lastly the only way to "win" is to not actually outplay a normal game, but to use exploits ie minature maps, chosen opponents etc . I thought Civ 3 was bad on the diety level as the only way to beat it was to just a mass fortunes and buy the tech advances. Beating the AI through loopholes instead of strategy is bad design and a bad experience,

Hate to whine so much but they just managed to amass in civ4 all the boring stupid parts of Civ3 without any of the fun a new game should bring in the civ universe

Good got that off my chase,,now wheres the swg forum......

 

[The Condor]

Hey baddabing next time you use a play on a Hunter S. Thompson (a [dead]great american writer whose books I enjoy) book title for your thread name at least spell it correctly (laothing=loathing). Also, I thought your version of it sucked fyi.

 

[Zelgadis75]

The wonders suk chunks, you get " zip pe de doo dar" for building them
In civ 3 the Great Library meant something ..tech advances ,in this game you get mainly cultural points, La de %$^% dar.

Actually the Great Library is VERY good at giving you massive tech, if you know how to use it right. The Great Library gives you 2 free scientist specialists in the city that builds it. Ok, on top of that you get what is it, +4 or so scientist Great Leader points per turn from the library, and an additional +6 or somthing from the free specialitst.

If you also make this city have 2 or more normal science specialits you are RAKING in scientist Great Leader points. Add national epic, parthenon, and perhapse the leader trait thet gets extra great leader points in for maximum effect. In my games with this city I literally get so many scientist Great Leaders that I can make academy in every city.

In addition, If you get pyramids and go representation, your all your scientist specialits get something like +3 bonus test tubes each(your great library city will be one of your top 3 cities of course), which means INSANE science for the Great Library city.

in civ3 great library only gave you free tech other 2 civs had, in my opinion a way weaker reward (except in diety maybe) than the actual tangible gains you get from civ4 GL. I'd be lucky to get jack squat from GL in civ 3, maybe republic, since I never researched that.

 

[baddabing]

I don't mind getting flamed on my first post, but it's a pity "the condor's" only reply to my comments was to get his knickers in a twist over a typo ??!!yawn...What about the subject matter ? Who cares what your opinion is on dead American writers. This is a civ 4 forum.

And BTW I love your own literary genius remarks " you version of it sucked fyi " How about trying to spell "YOUR ". If you can’t comment on the game, don’t bother replying.

Thanks zel for the info on Library, it’s a good point, but it’s usually impossible to reach Literacy tech in time enough to actually build it when playing on the prince level. Hence my comments of being frustrated . The Civ 4 AI suddenly artificially gains 6-7 techs after the classical period, and will usually only freely trade these tech amongst it’s own civs . In other words it doesn’t such so much out think or out strategize us, as it merely slows down the players game, whilst increasing it own . My own viewpoint is that it requires a lot more effort and imaginative thinking from Sid’s team to make a smart program that can truly strategize in civ 4 , than to merely handicap a players when you looking for a bigger challenge.

 

[DemonDeLuxe]

As for the wonders, I do agree to an extent: In former versions of CIV, their effect seemed to be more "solid": E.g. getting a free (insert building here) in every city is quite something (you do have that now with Stonehenge only, but it is less spectacular, since all you do ius mimicking a civ trait). In CIV4, this has in many cases been converted to some numerical bonus. I don't criticize the power of the new wonders - for me it's just a move towards a mathematics game, away from the "Build an empire" approach, and falls in line perfectly with the general lack of atmosphere and immersion of this edition.

 

[DemonDeLuxe]

double post

 

[Turner]

Moderator Action: Condor - warned, trolling.
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889

 

[Ranos]

Came in search of the civ dream no.4 and all we got was a play around.

I played from Civ II to this one and definatly civ 4 is the most fustrating game of the lot. What a waste of time, it's gameplay above the very begining level is obtuse and pointless. Instead of mr Sid raising the AI of the game to compete to a high human level, it merely handicaps the player and cheats amongst the other civs it plays. I dont know if you have noticed but when you play prince level suddenly the other civs JUMP 5-6 techs.( In a matter of 3 turns, especially in the medivial period) (and there are all the same ones...) And guess what you can't trade for any of the good ones. So okay you go to warfare, guess what the financial penalities for doing so in the game bankrupts you before you can get 3 units out the door. It's pathetic the fighting too, the defensive bonuses are way out of wack, that means tedious and repetative moves, and guess what by the time you even subdue one civ the other ones, are technologically ahead by 6-7 bounds, POINTLESS.The tech turns are two fast , even on Epic level. It's particually annoying to be constantly replacing units a couple of moves later when making them.

The AI cheats , it knows where your undefended cities are, even if they haven't been "discovered" It knows exactly what is in your city by the way it attacks and by the units it chooses. How the $^$* does a small number of cities mass huge number of troops, gain in Techs and still not be bankrput. Only one way by manipulating the code.

The wonders suk chunks, you get " zip pe de doo dar" for building them
In civ 3 the Great Library meant something ..tech advances ,in this game you get mainly cultural points, La de %$^% dar. The technical side of the game blows even bigger chunks, crashes slowing down with patch...<10% effective. And as for diplomacy, think civ 2 was more advanced, less options now than before. Unpredictable wacky Ai decisions once more

Lastly the only way to "win" is to not actually outplay a normal game, but to use exploits ie minature maps, chosen opponents etc . I thought Civ 3 was bad on the diety level as the only way to beat it was to just a mass fortunes and buy the tech advances. Beating the AI through loopholes instead of strategy is bad design and a bad experience,

Hate to whine so much but they just managed to amass in civ4 all the boring stupid parts of Civ3 without any of the fun a new game should bring in the civ universe

Good got that off my chase,,now wheres the swg forum......

I have never seen the sudden tech increases (ever thought of one AI civ trading with another) but as far as this game goes, but takes contemplation, thinking and strategy instead of just build and go. You have to play differently based first on what civ and leader you are playing, second on your starting location and third on how the first 50 turns go. If you get multiple religions within those turns, go for a cultural victory (especially if you are creative). If you get 1-2 religions, go for a conquest/domination victory. If you don't get any of those, do you best too keep up and trade and work diplomacy and go for a scientific or diplomatic victory.

The victories are of course intechangable and depend on what leadership qualities you get but that is the logical (though I admit that I can't prove any of it for certain).

Try playing a lot and changing your strategies instead of adopting one play style and starting on a high level instead of starting low to attempt to learn how the game works.

 

[Psyringe]

@baddabing:

Blaming the game will not improve your playing style.

Don't give up on the game yet. Most of what you said sounds very much like you're misunderstanding some concepts, like the great people (the Great library is huge because of them, you just have to learn how to use it).

The AI tech jump in classical age is very easy to explain by the fact that with the classical age there comes Alphabet, which allows you to trade techs. Once Alphabet is around, the AIs start to trade tech massively (and you should too).

The reason that the AI is able to stay competitive with a small number of cities is no proof for a cheat, it just seems that the AI knows what ti is doing. You don't have to be large to be competitive in Civ. If you don't build cottages, for example, being large won't help you much, as your economy will be very weak.

There are several non-obvious ways how the AI can know where your weakest cities are, e.g.spies, submarines, and religion.

Did you read the manual? No offense, but imho it seems as if you tried to play Civ3 in a Civ4 game, which doesn't really work.

I'm not saying that the AI doesn't use rule cheats. It is said not to use those, but I'm generally careful judging AIs. However, I haven't seen seen any conclusive proof yet (there's a map cheat claim that I haven't yet tested though). If you think you can prove that the AI cheats, I'd be very interested in your data.