Have they killed the fun for warmongers

[handy900]

Aeson Thanks for the interesting and reasonable posts. I find C4 war less fun because I miss my armies and C3 type arty, but I enjoy reading your posts.

 

[ZubieMaster]

If you fall far behind it means you're not playing right.

This may be what my problem comes down to, it seems so far the game was designed for a "right" way to play, and because I'm playing the "wrong" way by warmongering it's not as much fun as others are having. I'm sorry, I just don't find the pillaging thing any fun, nor do I have any interest in sending out that cool missionary to get that awesome +1 for my shrine, or whatever the added "right" strategies are that don't involve an improved war challenge. I understand that some people misinterpret this as me being mad the game is harder for warmongers now or whining there's no Civ III-like exploits, but again that's not the case. I hoped Civ IV would be harder but more fun due to more challenging AI warfare, not from added layers of non-war strategy.

I wouldn't say they killed it, they just made it tougher. A challenge, you know?

People keep saying the AI is smarter in war/there is more strategy/war is harder/more challenging, but I'm just not seeing it. My result thus far is that war play is not harder, it's just slower; in fact, it's easier now since you see exactly what's in the cities and just need to march up the appropriate counter-filled, cat-escorted SOD every time, rinse and repeat. Or if you are playing a higher level, the non-war layers to the game won't allow you to have enough/advanced enough units to rinse & repeat fast enough to a victory.

This isn't more of a war challenge. Again I think this is the confusion between looking at the big picture of the game as a whole in terms of winning, and looking at the war play itself in terms of is it fun? Certainly it's harder to win the game as a warmonger, you have to do all the "right" non-war ways to manage your empire, etc. -- but the *warfare itself* is more bland, IMHO. It seems that the former was the main focus in Civ IV, whereas I think the two goals (harder to win and more challenging fighting) should have gone more hand-in-hand. I get the feeling that more hours were spent by game designers in meetings discussing "How can we prevent the warmonger from winning?" instead of "How can we make this game more challenging and fun for the warmonger?"

So being stubborn I'm never going to accept the "right" way and keep banging my head against the Civ IV warmonger wall. Perhaps the poster who suggested simply quitting and playing RTS was correct -- unfortunately I hate the clickfest aspect to RTS and I've played the Civ franchise too long just to give up so fast -- so I'm going to keep at Civ IV and keep checking in with the warmonger crowd periodically, if people don't kill me for bumping this thread again...

 

[Kylearan]

Hi,

thanks for you long and detailed answer.

This [SoDs with artillery slowly taking cities] is one type of warfare. It's not the only way to fight though.

I don't have the same long experience with the game as you have, so I'm curious: How do you fight wars mid-game (not an early rush) against an AI which has an equal tech-level and a better production than you (Monarch/Emperor AI)?

The city defense bonus is easily modified:

Yes, I could mod the game, fair enough. But what I enjoy most is playing with other people in tournaments (like the RBCiv Epics) or succession games, so I'd prefer it if the basic game would be 'improved' (in my view, at least). If people start modding, it will become hard to agree on one mod to play with for a larger community.

You're asking for something the AI can't offer. If the AI isn't focusing on defending it's cities, the player can easily take it's cities and eliminate the AI before even having to deal with their units (ie. Civ III).

Maybe you are right, but I'm not sure about that. If the AI would defend its cities with less units while keeping around the same number of units overall, it would have more units ready for counter-attacks - which might bring back some of the excitement and faster pace some people miss.
Or maybe not; maybe Soren had tried it and it didn't work.

Like I said, if you want to see AI differentiation, set the game up with it. A Deity AI will probably eat several Settler AI's for lunch.

Nah, that would be too predictable.

Bigger is not always better in CIV. It can even be worse. Very good thing for game balance.

I agree, to a point. I like the system how they have slowed down the initial expansion phase, and what they did to counter overexpansion. But you have to be careful with levelling the field too much: There has to be *some* way for a civ to become more powerful than its neighbour, be it tech, size, resources, whatever. (If all are equal regardless the circumstances, it would be boring!) Now this more powerful civ *should* be able to conquer an equally intelligent, but less powerful civ. Which I haven't seen happen so far.

Generally speaking, the AI doesn't get a very big tech lead on each other. Have you seen big differentiation on techs in any game?

Yes, several times. In my current game, there are two AIs which are on par with me, and three civs who are way behind (about 10-15 techs, beginning of modern age) without my doing - I've played a peaceful builder's game so far. The AIs that are behind were those who have fought wars before (without gaining anything). Two of these backwards AIs now have attacked one of the strong AIs - and the strong AI had not managed to capture more than one city during a long war! I was not able to watch exactly what was happening (other end of the map), but if an AI with infantry and factories gets attacked by an AI with muskets and forges, the musket AI should be in trouble if the war drags on (which it did).

That game was not an exception; I had seen this more than once.

I've done it [rushing] on Deity without a tech lead...

Okay, maybe I need more experience (I'm playing on Emperor most of the time, but think about trying Immortal next), we'll see. But apart from what the human player can or cannot do, I still think the stalemate AI-AI wars (see above) are a sign that something's not right; either game design or AI behavior.

-Kylearan

 

[MeteorPunch]

The penalties given to aggressive civs are to counter the rewards for aggression. I find aggression a valid choice in most circumstances, but not always the best course of action. Which is what makes for strategy rather than repetition.

I don't see why there should be such crippling penalties. The distance and city number corruption in the beginning of the game are huge. While this was implemented to (artificially) hinder expansion, a negative side result is the effect on early wars (Ancient to Medieval). Conquered cities aren't really even useful until the Medieval/Renaissance. This is one of my biggest problems.

No idea what you mean by "the combat system itself". You'll have to be more specific. Unless you're saying the entire combat system, in which case Civilization (as a series) is not what you're looking for.

This would require more detail than I will give (because no one will fix it despite all my time writing). But basically Civ's combat has not evolved much. There should be combined attacks, flanking, and other maneuvers available.

Same with diplomacy. Obviously whatever part(s) of diplomacy you don't like (ie. call crap) you have a gripe with, but that's hardly useful information as it's completely nebulous unless you dislike everything about diplomacy... same "Civ as a series is not what you're looking for" in that case.

When I first heard about the ability to get other civs to wage wars for you, I was very excited. This however is almost never available to warmongers. Once you declare war on one civ, his 2 buddies dislike you. This has a kind of snowballing effect of every civ in the world looking at you negatively. Sure, I could wait a few years from now when some scientist on this forum figures out exactly how to make civs like you, but I'd like information available in the manual or civliopedia.

The options for diplo are very limited. I hate the implementation of the red text for everything. The AI's will not even listen to me even if I have a wonderful offer for them. I would like to give you 10 techs for your world map. Sorry, we don't like you enough. :shakehead

Defensive bonuses are to help balance building and warfare. There are times when you can still overcome the defensive bonuses, times when you can't or shouldn't. Again, that's what makes for strategy rather than repetition.

Haven't anyone noticed that tech overbalances building? I can't keep up because I'm in war dealing with artificial limitations, so my other neighbor who is peaceful already has tanks.

There are plenty of ways to address WW even early in the game. WW can be mitigated by how you fight. Poor tactics will lead to more WW than necessary. WW can be negated totally by making peace. WW's effects can be addressed by the Culture slider, city improvements, garrisons, resources, and civics. The Pyramids allows for Police State from very early on in the game.

The Pyramids is too overpowered/essential. I rather have early civics give no/less WW.

City/distance maintenance can be huge if you don't plan your empire or conquests very well. They can be minimal if you want to avoid them as much as possible. Somewhere in the spectrum is the "ideal" expansion rate, which will vary from game to game, and even from playstyle to playstyle.

Conquering in Civ 3 never dragged your empire down. It's an unfun addition.

I have no idea how you can say airpower is almost ignored. It's "game over" when used right against someone who can't counter it, and it's the only really effective counter for itself. Naval power is map dependant. On some maps it's the definitive factor in warfare. Others it's mostly irrellevent.

Naval needs a few more units and bombardment. My airplanes mostly got shot down by the RPG units and weren't as effective as artillary.

Artillery bombardment is abstracted further in CIV than it was in Civ III and not quite so abstracted as it was in Civ II. It's still there though, just abstracted to avoid huge problems the AI had with it. (And still a touch overpowered IMO.)

Why didn't they just fix the AI then?

What do you mean by lack of important military units? I find most military units important in various contexts.

Not so many are needed, actually. Mainly the Trebuchet (power=7?), Cruisers, AEGIS Cruisers, Parachutes, and some kind of commando.

Cannons can be beelined to, and are rather useful when doing so. Catapults are still useful up to Cannons even if you take your time.

Again, these come to late. Usually the AI's and myself have Riflemen at this time. It is painfully obvious with the lack of trebuchets and just odd seeing Rifles, Muskets, Grenadiers, and Catapults fighting together.

AIs do tend to hide in their cities too much. It makes them tougher to roll, but more likely to eventually beat. The overall effect is that beating all the AI is tougher, because most won't crack easily. On higher difficulties the AI are much more likely to have the "spare" units to send out though, so be careful...

It's just not fun to have AI's turtling and taking advantage of the huge defensive bonuses.

Axemen are a problem? I don't think I've seen that thread yet. Please explain.

How to kill Axemen?

The AI are generally better at Spaceship than any other victory condition. They don't so much "go for it" as they are limited to it as something they can compete with. That's just because they aren't that good, especially in relation to themselves. If you look at competitions like the GOTM, usually the players struggling to just win always won by Spaceship/Diplomatic. Domination means you've dominated... Conquest means you've completely dominated. Culture takes a dedicated and not as obvious approach. The AI just isn't good enough to dominate itself, which makes sense. Since Diplomatic victory is actually much more difficult in CIV, and Culture is now even less obvious, that leaves Spaceship as the chance for the "weak". If you want to see more variation, I'd suggest setting a mix of AI difficulties at start.

Better at Spaceship? Yeah I guess considered they spam cottages everywhere and being incompetant at other victory condions,

Ship capacity is too low? And you said that navy can be ignored. That seems contradictory. You need more ships, which means navy is more important.

They lost functionality (bombard) and it takes a ton of ships to invade.

Compare:
Transports
Civ 2: holds 8
Civ 3: holds 6
Civ 4: holds 4

Carriers are similar:
Civ 2: holds 8
Civ 3: holds 4
Civ 4: holds 3

I have never had a city I captured flip to a third party. I can't tell you what the problem is, because you've offered no specifics, but flipping can be avoided.

I have several times. If you are at war with a civ that is borders by another strong or cultured civ. This was discussed awhile back, as you probably remember.

The designers tried to balance gameplay so that building, warmongering, and various combinations can all be effective. I have no trouble effectively waging war still, Civ III style rushes included. It's just not far and away more effective than building peacefully anymore.

It's not balanced. The AI cannot win by anything but space.

If you find that unfun, you can easily imbalance gameplay by editing the XML.

I just want improvements to the actual game.

That is a poor assessment of what effective gameplay in CIV is. You're advocating playing like the AI

It just seems to me that the game is built around playing this way.

btw, I don't expect you to respond to all of this (thanks though for doing so to my previous post) - it takes awhile to type it all. I do think Civ 4 is a great game, but it could be much better (as surprising as that is).

 

[MeteorPunch]

Generally speaking, the AI doesn't get a very big tech lead on each other. Have you seen big differentiation on techs in any game?

Absolutely. In a recent game there is one AI in the modern age with others in the Renaissance age. The ones who are behind have been warring a lot(without minimal gains or losses in territory, of course).

 

[Kylearan]

Hi,

When I first heard about the ability to get other civs to wage wars for you, I was very excited. This however is almost never available to warmongers. Once you declare war on one civ, his 2 buddies dislike you. This has a kind of snowballing effect of every civ in the world looking at you negatively.

That's not true. You have to be more careful whom to attack and check the diplo web first, but then it's not really a problem. There are two camps usually, and while the camp of the civ you attacked will dislike you, it's no problem to bribe the AIs from the other camp to wage war. In fact, that will have a snowballing effect the other way around: The AIs you bribed will like you even more, because you fight the same enemy.

I've completed an Emperor game where I waged war early and often, and you know what? In the end, I won a diplo victory where my two closest buddies (which I had bribed to wage war several times before) voted for me.

The Pyramids is too overpowered/essential.

As was the Great Library for AW games in Civ 3, but nobody complained about that.

It's just not fun to have AI's turtling and taking advantage of the huge defensive bonuses.

This I agree with!

It's not balanced. The AI cannot win by anything but space.

Unfortunately, yes - although I'll never expect it to win by culture. But at least the threat that it might be able to win by domination would be nice.

-Kylearan

 

[Aeson]

I don't have the same long experience with the game as you have, so I'm curious: How do you fight wars mid-game (not an early rush) against an AI which has an equal tech-level and a better production than you (Monarch/Emperor AI)?

Well, I've never been in that situation.

In that case you'd need to go with a specific tech beeline, massive numbers, tactically intelligent strikes, and/or a bunch of bombardment units. The AI, even if it has better production than you, won't focus that production as well as a player can. A player can build up a massive army, throw it into conquest, and then refocus on economy. The AI tends to keep the same focus production wise, no huge variations. Same with tech, while overall you may be even, there are beelines that the player can take advantage of that the AI will usually not.

The best way is to not get into that situation of course.

Yes, I could mod the game, fair enough. But what I enjoy most is playing with other people in tournaments (like the RBCiv Epics) or succession games, so I'd prefer it if the basic game would be 'improved' (in my view, at least). If people start modding, it will become hard to agree on one mod to play with for a larger community.

And then you'd force those who like how the game is now to mod. If a community decides that the game needs to be changed, it's possible. I don't see what the big deal about "standard" is in this case.

Maybe you are right, but I'm not sure about that. If the AI would defend its cities with less units while keeping around the same number of units overall, it would have more units ready for counter-attacks - which might bring back some of the excitement and faster pace some people miss.
Or maybe not; maybe Soren had tried it and it didn't work.

Well Civ III was like that. The AI would send out the SOD, and the adept players could just avoid it or use it as promotion fodder and eliminate the AI by taking the weakly defended cities. Even Deity AI's would only defend their cities with 2 units each, which was fatal.

If I were designing an AI, it would be different of course. But it wouldn't be suitable for a tiered difficulty level system.

Nah, that would be too predictable.

Then try 3 Emperor AI, 2 Prince... or whatever. You don't have to assign the civ to the difficulty, just leave the leader random and you won't even know who is who when the game starts up. It probably will become clear later on, which is the point.

I used the extreme case to most clearly illustrate the principle involved.

I agree, to a point. I like the system how they have slowed down the initial expansion phase, and what they did to counter overexpansion. But you have to be careful with levelling the field too much: There has to be *some* way for a civ to become more powerful than its neighbour, be it tech, size, resources, whatever. (If all are equal regardless the circumstances, it would be boring!) Now this more powerful civ *should* be able to conquer an equally intelligent, but less powerful civ. Which I haven't seen happen so far.

I have no problems. The AI... it has problems with military aggression. That's the AI, not game mechanics. If it were game mechanics, then the player wouldn't be able to defeat an opponent either.

Yes, several times. In my current game, there are two AIs which are on par with me, and three civs who are way behind (about 10-15 techs, beginning of modern age) without my doing - I've played a peaceful builder's game so far.

Could you post a save for me to look at? Would be interesting to see why they are so far behind.

The AIs that are behind were those who have fought wars before (without gaining anything). Two of these backwards AIs now have attacked one of the strong AIs - and the strong AI had not managed to capture more than one city during a long war! I was not able to watch exactly what was happening (other end of the map), but if an AI with infantry and factories gets attacked by an AI with muskets and forges, the musket AI should be in trouble if the war drags on (which it did).

But it's 2v1, and with the 2 being the aggressors. 2v1 is a huge balancer. The 2 are the warlike ones vs 1 that has been peaceful so are more likely to have more units, and more promotions on those units. Plus "passive" leaders tend to be that way even in war. Even if the 1 does have a military advantage, they might not want to exploit it as it wasn't a war of their choosing. Just fend off the "barbs" and continue economically advancing as best they can to compete with the real competition.

 

[yoshi74]

The real fun of the cIV war system came to me when fighting defensive wars. It wasn't that my cities were in dire danger (though sometimes it came close when being sloppy at military buildup), but the defence of infrastucture forced me to get rid ofh the attackers who were inside my borders. At this point the combat system made a lot of fun.
On the other hand, when going for offensive... its the SoD, crawl to the target city, bomb down defenses, suicide some cats and take the city. Refill troops and repeat at next city. While there are some counter attacks and battles in the open, they are rare not that importent.
Pillaging is, as described, boring and it feels just barbaric, not "civilized" (you may ask how civiziled war is well...).

It would be much more interesting when units could actually conquer land without the cities controlling it. A special unit which does a kind of worker action for some turns: build up control in a tile like cultural control (though this term does not fit here).
This way a war would be much more flexible. Its no longer to ship a hug blob of my units to a huge blob of enemy units inside a city, but more a kind of front war in the open.
I know this is a rather harsh change ( already mentioned by others) and likely even to different from the current system to be an option for a expansion. But IMO war should shift away from the two options city-siege and plunder-pillage to a more dynamic war.
And really, it should change in a way that the AI actually can wage a war against another AI successfully (not only against a human who forgot to build military).

At the end just some words to armies and civIII artillery units:

I don't miss armies a tiny bit. They were only usefull because the AI did not know how to deal with it. They didn't dare to attack a army which could be easily killed with the acceptable loss of some small number of units, lossing huge amounts of units in the result.

As for the bombardment i think a very toned down version of the civIII system could work. It was redicules to reduce a unit with artillery to near death (has been tried in WWI a lot, didn't came close to the effect civIII).
But the ability to bombard a unit down to 80% (or even only to 90%, some death, some moral loss, but most survived due to cover and bad accurace, like in real life mostly) would make artillery usefull for field combat without making guaranteeing the victory of the artillery user.

 

[ToddMarshall]

Random thoughts mostly on topic:

Sometimes I wonder if I got the same CIV game as everyone else....

While I'm not a dedicated AW player by ANY strech, (You'd think I was a grand warmonger by following the SG's I played back in the day, but in my SP games I usually played by the honorable rules from RB), I did like to go for conquest sometimes for variety, and did play AW on occasion.

I have enjoyed the limited ammount of war I've done so far, if only because it's not formulamatic. Well, not AS formulamatic.... I haven't wared that much yet as I've been working on trying to master the tech tree and the trading aspects, so I've been reading this thread with interest.

I'm still doing something wrong in the early game, though, as I seem to allways fall behind early. It doesn't stop me from winning most of the time (even a win on Immortal while being, I thought, hopelessly behind at the beginning). I've usually been able to catch up by shrewd trading and research emphasis in the midgame.

btw - Yes, aeson, I find that in virtually EVERY game some of the AI either get out to a huge tech lead, or lag far behind. It's been rare for me to see more than 2 leadish AI, and more often one. Usually the one of the AI could complete his ship before 2 others could even build the space program. Usually, he can't outbuild me though . The AI DOES seem to still fall apart slightly in the last 2 ages, though nowhere near to the post rails level from Civ 3.

I, too, wish there were more diplomatic options. Or, at least, if it would give us a limited ammount of things we could "red out" so the AI won't come demanding it every other turn (maybe we could select a few ppl that we'd never declare war or quit trading with so we arent constantly getting rep hits for it, or even just annoyed by the requests. It should be a small ammount though. Even if it was only 2 it'd be nice.)

I'm glad that they got rid of some of the broken ones from Civ 3 however. Maybe in time, we'll be able to strike a balance between the two.

I find it fascinating that nearly everyone complains the AI only declares war on them, not on each other. In 12 games, I've had exactly 3 wars declared on me. Two of them by less than sane AI (Monty and Cathy). In my last game alone, there were more than twenty AI vs AI declarations. I even saw a usually strong civ get gassed (completely wiped out). In fact, I suspect that it's just this kind of thing that lets me, ultimately, catch up in tech.

Annother 2 civ's were at deaths door. This is out of 5 AI's. Given more time, one of the AI COULD have posed a domination threat if left unchecked. This would be an argument for quickening the pace of city conquest. That the AI actually poses a threat to win this way. IF the only option is having silly Civ 3 pace or the current one, I'll take the current one.

I think the lack of wars declared on me has a lot to do with my play style so far...

I give them what they want, (sometimes just gift them a resource w/o them even asking if its a close, warlike neighbor.... at least for a while), and keep a reasonable military. At all costs, I keep from being somones "worst enemy" or looking like a military pushover. I've fouind that being cautious/pleased with everyone is preferable in most cases to being Friendly/Annoyed if you're trying to avoid geting attacked.

On navies: I have to agree with the majority. Having no military naval transport that can venture into the oceans till Astronomy is a problem. Maybe there should be a unit available at optics that can transport 2 military units. Even if it moved horribly slow. It wouldn't obsolete Caravells, since caravells can defy closed boarders.

On annother note: Yes, the game is modable. But then I'm not playing the same game as everyone else, and cannot compare my results to theirs. It would be nice if they can upgrade core game play. Then those who want to weaken it to suit them can mod it. (note - I'm not saying mods are bad, so don't go there. I DID play Civ 3 mods for variety and expect to do the same in CIV)

Maybe we'll get some of the beta testers putting up examples of how they win games on Deity. Concrete examples ie. game reports. Seeing how war is possible at that level would probably go a long way to increasing the enjoyment of the warmongers.

There are a billion other points in this thread I'd like to comment on. Maybe when I get 3-4 hours to sift through it all I'll do that. Not now though.

- Maniac

 

[Aeson]

I don't see why there should be such crippling penalties. The distance and city number corruption in the beginning of the game are huge. While this was implemented to (artificially) hinder expansion, a negative side result is the effect on early wars (Ancient to Medieval).

Generally a city working a Cottage or two pays for itself early on. The effects can be crippling if you aren't paying attention and properly supporting your conquest/expansion with your economy. But if you want to go conquering early, there are ways to do so still.

As for why corruption is how it is, it's not to just hinder peaceful expansion, but military expansion as well. And while it may be "artificial", as everything in the game has to be, it represents something that has been much more true in real life than Civ III's expansion model represents.

Conquered cities aren't really even useful until the Medieval/Renaissance. This is one of my biggest problems.

Taking a civ's only city... or half of them... isn't useful? Even if you just razed it, that's one competitor out of the running. If you plan around it, captured cities can completely negate the need for building your own Settlers/Workers even. I've triggered Domination on a Large map without ever building a Settler or Worker for instance.

When I first heard about the ability to get other civs to wage wars for you, I was very excited. This however is almost never available to warmongers. Once you declare war on one civ, his 2 buddies dislike you. This has a kind of snowballing effect of every civ in the world looking at you negatively. Sure, I could wait a few years from now when some scientist on this forum figures out exactly how to make civs like you, but I'd like information available in the manual or civliopedia.

There are consequences for your actions.

Pay attention to who likes who. The info is right there on F4, or can be accessed "verbally" in diplomacy by talking about other subjects. Just select a leader in F4, hover over the others, and it will flat out state (with the actual values) what they feel about each.

As for having to figure out how to make civs like you so that you can make them like you, that's just the way everything will always work. You need to know what you're doing to do it well (at least consistantly).

The options for diplo are very limited. I hate the implementation of the red text for everything. The AI's will not even listen to me even if I have a wonderful offer for them. I would like to give you 10 techs for your world map. Sorry, we don't like you enough. :shakehead

This is something I agree with. There should (almost) always be a price they will accept. But I can also see why it would be difficult to implement correctly.

Haven't anyone noticed that tech overbalances building? I can't keep up because I'm in war dealing with artificial limitations, so my other neighbor who is peaceful already has tanks.

Economy and military need each other to be successful. That's balance.

The Pyramids is too overpowered/essential. I rather have early civics give no/less WW.

I don't like the Pyramids. Not because they are overpowered, but because it screws up the balance between the government Civics. They have one balance in the regular tech tree, but an entirely different one with the Pyramids.

I generally don't build the Pyramids though. I think there are often better uses of 400 production, and/or the research into Masonry, at that point in the game. (IND and/or Stone can change my mind of course...)

WW can be addressed in several other ways in any case.

Conquering in Civ 3 never dragged your empire down. It's an unfun addition.

Civ III did have tradeoffs to warfare, just laughable ones that didn't achieve their goals. Unit support costs, WW, possible diplomatic hits, and actually building the units were costs of warfare. It just didn't end up meaning anything because all those portions of the game were able to be entirely circumvented.

Naval needs a few more units and bombardment. My airplanes mostly got shot down by the RPG units and weren't as effective as artillary.

Airpower is very effective. If you choose to not exploit it fully, it can slow down your conquest.

Why didn't they just fix the AI then?

The AI has limitations. As long as players aren't going to be willing to pay hundreds or thousands of dollars for the software, don't have supercomputers, and won't put up with turn times that may take weeks or months to complete that's what we're stuck with. AI with limitations.

Civ III style bombardment units needed to be changed, because coding the AI to use them effectively wasn't deemed feasible. When the SDK comes out, you can address the issue as you find feasible.

Not so many are needed, actually. Mainly the Trebuchet (power=7?), Cruisers, AEGIS Cruisers, Parachutes, and some kind of commando.

I can see why those units could be fun, but you make no arguments about why they are needed. What would these units fix in the game that needs to be fixed (other than that they don't exist)?

Also, bear in mind that everything in the game represents the limited assets that the game could be shipped with. Just identifying things you think should be in the game isn't enough, you have to also identify assets that could have been realistically swapped out in favor of those things.

Or just wait for an expansion or mod that includes them.

Again, these come to late. Usually the AI's and myself have Riflemen at this time. It is painfully obvious with the lack of trebuchets and just odd seeing Rifles, Muskets, Grenadiers, and Catapults fighting together.

You aren't focusing on researching to Cannon then. Steel can be beelined to in 3 fewer techs than Rifling. At the extreme, picking up everything along the way is over 20 excess techs as well. You'll probably want some of them along the way, but don't need all of them. The AI tends to pick up most everything along the way, so that allows for quite a beeline actually.

How to kill Axemen?

Get in the way with your own Axemen. Horse Archers. Catapults if they are stacked with Spears. Archers and Walls vs non-Cover Axemen. Shock Axemen vs non-Shock Axemen. Plenty of options for dealing with Axemen, most of which were already posted in that thread. So what's the issue?

They lost functionality (bombard) and it takes a ton of ships to invade.

I still don't see how having to have a ton of ships makes them less important to have. They don't bombard (in the same way), but that doesn't make them any less important for controlling the seas.

I have several times. If you are at war with a civ that is borders by another strong or cultured civ. This was discussed awhile back, as you probably remember.

It's possible to lose cities to these flips if you don't take the proper precautions. It's also possible to avoid these flips if you're willing to do what's required to hold onto the city.

It's not balanced. The AI cannot win by anything but space.

That does not apply to whether or not the player's options are balanced.

I just want improvements to the actual game.

As do we all.

It just seems to me that the game is built around playing this way.

btw, I don't expect you to respond to all of this (thanks though for doing so to my previous post) - it takes awhile to type it all. I do think Civ 4 is a great game, but it could be much better (as surprising as that is).

I like long draw out discussions...

 

[Aeson]

btw - Yes, aeson, I find that in virtually EVERY game some of the AI either get out to a huge tech lead, or lag far behind. It's been rare for me to see more than 2 leadish AI, and more often one. Usually the one of the AI could complete his ship before 2 others could even build the space program. Usually, he can't outbuild me though . The AI DOES seem to still fall apart slightly in the last 2 ages, though nowhere near to the post rails level from Civ 3.

That's interesting. I don't see this in my games. It's probably just a playstyle issue then. I like to target the leaders and use the ones who aren't doing as well for support (or as the weapon), which tends to even things out. Even peacefully speaking, I try to keep the AI on a level tech field, as it increase trading potential for me.

 

[Arathorn]

Maniac,

I tend to play Civ4 similarly as you, but I essentially NEVER see AI-AI wars. I've seen two AI on AI declarations, without my direct and expensive intervention, in about 10 games. I don't necessarily have a feel for the diplomatic game, but I always have negative relations from trading with worst enemies. That's because a civ seems to change its "worst enemy" every couple turns, so any deal every made in the past seems to count against me.

Plus, getting a tech every three turns isn't fast enough. You need to trade. And with all the red on the screen ("We fear you're getting too advanced." WHY? Because I'm only 4 techs behind you now?), it often comes down to trading with the one AI who will trade with you, pissing off even more. Making a friend is almost impossible, for me. Slowing down AIs? Never happens, unless I do it. Seriously. That's my experience.

I have more to say on this, but I need to do more thinking, too. Most people in this thread are doing a very good job on trying to explain how and why they've come to their perspectives. I'd like to see that continue.

Arathorn

 

[Aeson]

This may be what my problem comes down to, it seems so far the game was designed for a "right" way to play, and because I'm playing the "wrong" way by warmongering it's not as much fun as others are having.

I used the term "right" as a generalization. It doesn't mean there is a single right way to play. Far from it, CIV allows more variation in valid playstyles than any other game in the series.

I'm sorry, I just don't find the pillaging thing any fun, nor do I have any interest in sending out that cool missionary to get that awesome +1 for my shrine, or whatever the added "right" strategies are that don't involve an improved war challenge.

Pillaging is something I almost never do against the AI. Strategic resources, pillage... everything else is generally better to have to work when you conquer the city. Pillaging can be a valid way to play though... just I don't like limiting warfare to it.

If you aren't taking advantage of religion or other economic factors in the game, then you aren't going to be as effective as if you did.

I understand that some people misinterpret this as me being mad the game is harder for warmongers now or whining there's no Civ III-like exploits, but again that's not the case. I hoped Civ IV would be harder but more fun due to more challenging AI warfare, not from added layers of non-war strategy.

If you want a war game, there are war games. CIV is not a war game.

People keep saying the AI is smarter in war/there is more strategy/war is harder/more challenging, but I'm just not seeing it.

If you wish to argue about what "people" are saying, please quote and respond to them instead of me. If you wish to discuss what I've said, feel free.

My result thus far is that war play is not harder, it's just slower; in fact, it's easier now since you see exactly what's in the cities and just need to march up the appropriate counter-filled, cat-escorted SOD every time, rinse and repeat. Or if you are playing a higher level, the non-war layers to the game won't allow you to have enough/advanced enough units to rinse & repeat fast enough to a victory.

This isn't more of a war challenge. Again I think this is the confusion between looking at the big picture of the game as a whole in terms of winning, and looking at the war play itself in terms of is it fun? Certainly it's harder to win the game as a warmonger, you have to do all the "right" non-war ways to manage your empire, etc. -- but the *warfare itself* is more bland, IMHO.

You're entitled to your opinion about warfare. It's possible to win by Conquest or Domination even on high difficulty levels though.

It seems that the former was the main focus in Civ IV, whereas I think the two goals (harder to win and more challenging fighting) should have gone more hand-in-hand. I get the feeling that more hours were spent by game designers in meetings discussing "How can we prevent the warmonger from winning?" instead of "How can we make this game more challenging and fun for the warmonger?"

You can disagree with the result they came up with as "fun", but it's ludicrous to assume the developers weren't trying to make the game as fun as they could. Especially considering that your assumption about what they are thinking is contradictory to what they've actually said.

So being stubborn I'm never going to accept the "right" way and keep banging my head against the Civ IV warmonger wall.

I can warmonger fine. There is no warmonger wall. It's just not a warmonger escalator anymore.

 

[Mike Lemmer]

I've seen them, although they don't last as long as player wars. In one game, I warred with Saladin and crippled him. After I made peace, a dozen turns later 2 AIs simultaneously declared war on him & asked me to help. We ripped him to shreds. That's squelched any complaints I have about the AIs teaming up on you.

 

[Joh]

I'm having trouble accepting the arguments against warmongering here.

Warmongering is always a vital part of my strategy. I don't need to build settlers, and can get good cities which are useful in the classical era from it.

A quick building of the palace epic in a captured central city easily takes care of the city maintenance costs.

War weariness is never a problem really because when you gain cities at a decent rate, you outwiegh happiness penalties by just having more cities overall, and with the monarchy civic, can maintain good happiness in key cities through the use of cheap military units.

It also seems to be the quickest way to win - conquer half the world then vote yourself as world leader in the UN If you've focused on war, that's easier than spaceship.

 

[ToddMarshall]

@ Arathorn - Honestly, I think the AI, the SANE ones (Monty, Cathy, and maybe a few others are, from what I've seen, NOT sane), usually declare war on their worst enemy, their 2nd worst enemy, or somone whos militarily weak (the agressive civs seem to like to attack weaklings especially).

I'm open to being shown this is not correct, it's just my working thesis from what information I have available.

If you can stay out of the "worst enemy" spot with the more agressive civs early, they tend to declare war on an AI instead. Once they've declared on that AI, relations are permanently damaged, making that AI, in most cases, their worst enemy for the rest of the game. This has the effect of getting these AI to keep declaring on each other time after time.

This is not an aboslute, but its a strong tendancy the AI exhibits as far as I can see. Most of these wars don't go very far, but occasionally, they do. I've seen some AI pretty crippled. I've even seen an AI eliminated wholy from AI vs AI action. I recently saw an AI that had been totally dominant suffer a full AI dogpile. This AI was even in the same religion as 3 of the 4 dogpilers! They were so pillaged off, I thought they were playing "Finally Ready for Regent" for a minute (some may not get the reference, but Arathorn will).

Maybe this is why I feel like the AI "fall apart" in the later stages. It's really more of a "they screw each other while I keep my head low" thing. I wish I understood more of why this happens in my games.

As far as the trading problem, you do have a point. Three of the four games I lost were because I couldn't do anything to catch up (one I'm convinced wasn't my fault. If anyone can win an emperor start on an island where the other 7 civs are on a pangea, I'd like to see it).

One other thing about how I've played so far. It relies on getting lots of resources. It seems to fail brutally on overly crowded maps (3 of my 4 loses) where I have little or nothing extra to issue for bribes.

I've yet to work out how to overcome this problem on Emperor +. This is why I'm interested to see one of the BT's post a game or 2 where they sucessfully wared early on Deity. I'd like to learn what, so far, has escaped me.

@ Aeson - Actually, I like to keep the AI staggerd a bit so I can trade with one, then trade that stuff to the next one etc. This may be what you are saying too.

I usually like to beeline things, then go back and get those "obsolete" things from some of the more backward AI.

I actually like to pillage later on. Unless I'm warring to expand, which is best done early when possible, it's a great tool. Nothing slows down an AI's research like pillaging off all their "suburbs". The cash you get from it can be used to fuel your own tech pace.

I agree that the AI should have a lot less RED options if it can be reasonably coded at some point. Maybe a YELLOW option (like ok, if you trade me three times what its worth, I'll do it.) for tech, maps etc I have no problem with the red for not breaking trade or declaring war. thats a GOOD thing IMHO. I also have no problem with them not trading techs leading to an in progress wonder. I don't even have a problem with red for worst enemy status. I just wish they would part with obsolete stuff more often.

- Maniac

 

[ThERat]

AI-AI wars:

I have seen them, in fact in that mentioned monarch game, where I was happily sitting in my corner next to India and China. First, an AI in the north took over another AI almost completely doubling their land. Then India started to take China, one city after another. Impressive stacks of tanks/MA rolling around. But, instead of gaining the lead, those 2 nations bogged themselves down to allow me the easy way out, called AC win. I simply made sure that I have enough defenders in my cities to deter any attack and built the space parts needed. 5 turns before my last piece was done, India had recovered from the warfare and added maintenace due to expanded empire, they finished the space elevator.

Lesson learned: If you want to win, don't fight a war but fly to AC. I only wanted to test this once.

There was another thing that I didn't like and that was the fact when someone else was elected the UN counsellor, they came up with all sorts of resolutions forcing you to take up the same civis as everyone. What a strange concept is this? Why is everyone forced to do that? I can accpet no nukes, but civics? Should be your own choice, maybe if theer is a penalty, ok.

Anyway, I will try in the next games to really go out and fight as Aeson said, should be possible.

 

[ToddMarshall]

But, instead of gaining the lead, those 2 nations bogged themselves down to allow me the easy way out, called AC win. I simply made sure that I have enough defenders in my cities to deter any attack and built the space parts needed

This has been my experience too. It's why I usually catch up in the end of games I think. Hopefully the AI v AI wars that seem omnipresent in my games are something to do with my play style, and not just a small sample. I'm quite enjoying the come from behind aspect of most of my wins.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

Damn, I wish I had seen this thread much earlier, as I fear I may say stuff that has already been said. First up, as with Lockesdonkey, I really like the way you have worded your OP ThERat, you have raised some perfectly valid criticisms WITHOUT resorting to the whole 'Civ4 is crap' argument which has become so popular here of late . Anyway, I 100% agree with you in regards to MGL's. With the expanded great person system, MGL's would fit in so perfectly now-and I would NOT be suprised if we see them make a return in the future-especially if we beg them to do it . IMO, you should be able to create 'Soldier' or 'General' specialists who boost the production rates of units-but that you require a barracks to convert a citizen to a soldier. Certain Wonders could also boost the number of Great Person points you get towards obtaining a Great General. A great general could be used to build a Military Academy in a city (bonus culture and bonus XP for ALL units), used to rush a military tech, or held over for a golden age. How simple would that be?
Beyond that, and the need to boost the starting retreat chance of cannons and artillery AND boost the overall movement points of naval units AND make spies/espionage more important, most of the changes they have made to the game I feel are GOOD things-they haven't so much made Warmongering LESS fun, imo, but made other paths MORE fun. To me boosting the other paths does not have to be a zero-sum game.

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[nigam]

AIs do wipe out each other:

I had started a Empror game just to see how long I can survive (mostly play at noble) The oponents were Ceasar, Alexander, Gandhi, Egyptians and one other. I was bogged down fighting barbarians in early game and they had razed my 2nd city

I was playing nice to everybody so that they would not declare war on me, building my army at the same time. Ceasar first wiped out Egyptians and then declared war on me although he was on other continent. Alex was my friendly neighbour but as soon as he saw an opportunity for land grab, he was too happy to backstab. Needless to say, all I could do was "Hail Ceasar".