Is it okay to dislike standard/normal?

[GreatWhiteHope]

Unfortunately, playing on deity/huge/marathon/17 civs using an early rushing unique unit is at least half a level or even a whole level easier than playing on standard/normal/6 civ settings using an average leader. Using easier settings opens up oneself to ad hominems. Otherwise, huge/marathon would be the only setting I would play on.

So recently I've decided to man-up and make the transition back to standard/normal, but I'm finding it much too fast for my tastes. I just can't get invested into a standard/normal game.

Here is the thread for the game I attempted. I've also attached my saved game at 100AD. No chariots, no vultures, no cheese. It looks like I'm nearly on par compared to the other players in the thread, though I may be lagging some turns in the techs and wonders (hope I don't lose liberalism). Not sure where the shortage in beakers came from, but I think it may be due to teching horseback riding early, thinking that I was actually going to enjoy an ancient era war.

The classical age just flew by without any time for a swords/axe build-up. Doughnut map with 6 civs means tons of land, so I rexed until 8 cities and 0% research, timing it with obtaining writing. That left me without the ability to wage war until the ADs. 100 AD rolls around, and the diplomatic situation is great. Everyone is fighting everyone else. Just when I thought I was going to launch an elepult attack, it became apparent that, again, it was the better idea to sit on my 8 cities and wait for a cuirassier breakout. I could wait for cuirs and win the game by 1500 but what's the point in finishing this game?

I just don't enjoy the pacing of standard/normal. A military build-up that lasts half as long as the era itself, and the subsequent war that lasts well into the next era? Lame. I prefer to capitulate multiple opponents in each era and end the game with knights.

 

[MyOtherName]

One thing to consider is that you're playing deity because it's hard: the difficulty level greatly accelerates your opponents development to the point where they offer a satisfying challenge.

Naturally, the further you turn this knob of "speed up your opponents", the more dramatic your advantage has to be before you can start defeating them.


That said, maybe your sense of scale is off: settling 8 early cities is quite a lot on a normal sized map, and it seems incongruous to imagine trying to do that at the same time as an early classical era attack. It's been a while since I've read a lot of others' playthroughs, but I recall 4 cities is a typical number for classical (or very early medieval) warfare.

 

[Lennier]

playing on deity/huge/marathon/17 civs

I'm not a Deity player, but you could do the standard 11 civs rather than bumping it to 11. Opportunities for early rushes are rarer on huge/11 civs than huge /17 civs or standard/6 civs.

 

[Windsor]

It's obviously okay to dislike standard/normal, but I do think you are missing out on the best of Civ4.

My first reaction to Civ4 was that time flew way too fast. How was I supposed to get an army out? As you said, it takes to long to build and then march it.

Then I realized that quickly building an army using all the tools the game offers to rush stuff is the game. That's the challenge and its a very fun one. Epic/marathon makes the game less focused and larger map sizes just makes you do the same stuff over again.

I view Civ4 as a fast-paced actionfilled strategy game and not an epic journey through time. Civ4 is a speed boat, not a cruise ship

 

[elmurcis]

Well.. magic for me of Huge/Mara is that I usually get chance to war multiple wars in each era with different units.. 1st wars are just usuall catapult+something rushes... but it might end with modern day "tactical no nukes" war... than I love to use "super strike" attack - full up submarines with guides missiles (with kremlin and US its very fast to get all missiles ready), get transport/destroyers ready.. and go to find next enemy naval fleet city.. 3-5 missiles/unit, city now empty to take it (and destroy all these dangerous ships) and can unload all units from transport same turn + airlift in heavy defender). Its likely that already next turn can get capitulation with that strike And its not usual to get this thing on normal/standard... than game is much faster..

 

[Noble Zarkon]

I view Civ4 as a fast-paced actionfilled strategy game and not an epic journey through time. Civ4 is a speed boat, not a cruise ship

I'm the exact opposite and it sounds like the OP is too - play what you enjoy and ignore anyone who tells you otherwise. Deity, even on Marathon / Huge is still incredibly tough!

 

[shpeka]

It is perfectly OK to dislike any setting. The only thing you will miss is the sense of competitiveness - since you will have very few people to compare to.

I started playing again recently and find it great fun playing on fractal/normal. You are entirely correct though - in a typical game you can afford only two wars: an early rush if you feel it is required, and a late cuirassier/cavalry (alternatively cannon) attack slowly building you up for a domination victory.

 

[Macksideshow]

Epic speed is clearly the best

 

[shpeka]

The problem comes with the number crunching. If you want to be succesful at higher levels you should have everything memorized (e.g. whip = 30 , chop = 20 (30 with Math ), granary = 60 , etc). With the change of gamespeed everything changes: research, production, population pops. This is a headache for me.

 

[GreatWhiteHope]

Damn I actually just lost that game. I lib'd military tradition and attacked at 1000 ad, just like the other players did. And lo and behold, by the 1200s, before I was even able to get a jump on my 2nd target, I had been BEATEN to rifling by everybody despite being the first to cuirs by several techs. It's gonna be a real slogfest now.

Some of these other guys were finishing in the 1400s with the AIs still not having researched rifling. I guess early AI rifling can really screw you out of a competitive finish date.

The window of opportunity for my cuir breakout was 20 turns. That should be neither standard nor normal.

 

[GreatWhiteHope]

Ok by 1420 I capitulated 3 opponents, but there is no way I can finish in the 1400s, or even the 1500s. I must be doing something wrong because I noticed a massive difference in the total number of units built. One of the forum members finished at 1490 and built over 220 (!!) cuirs and cavs. By 1420, I was sitting at a mere one third of his total.

Here are his eye-popping stats:



and here are my paltry numbers :



Clearly I'm missing something crucial here. Anyone know how in the world I could have built an additional one hundred and thirty calvary units between 1000 ad and 1400ad? Work pure representation specialists, build all farms, and whip more? Stay in police state and stop researching after rifling? I have no idea how these guys are building 220+ cavs/cuirs in the same span of time, and still manage to outpace me badly in beakers. I don't think I could've even drafted that many units. Look how this guy even had time to build monasteries. WHERE did he get the production to build 18 monasteries, 19 temples, 17 forges, 6 universities, 6 markets, 7 lighthouses (?), 2 banks, in addition to 220 units? Hammers from AP buildings would've barely broke even by the finish date. As you can see, courthouses were the only buildings I had time for, other than granaries, barracks and libraries. Scratching my head over this one..

@Windsor:
Yes! Better players are somehow always able to squeeze more out of each turn!

 

[vanillasine]

best place to answer those questions would be that game thread. ask for statistics at various points in their games - they should have the saves still.

 

[Seraiel]

You're getting Cuirrassiers too late imho. I've had games where I built over 250 Cuirrs / Cavs before winning the game, and that was before 14xx AD.

Someone once said 700 AD was a good date for Rifling, and I agree with that. I also remember one of my games where I pre-built 50 HAs and upgraded them with 2-3 GMs to Cuirrs at 500 AD.

Without a save, it's impossible to say why, but the most common mistake of new players is that they're making many small mistakes that add up and that they're not optimally using the tools that are at their disposal.

REXing to 8 cities makes getting Liberalism already difficult because Settlers are so expensive, still you should be able to Lib at 700 AD at latest. Post some saves and I'll look at them, I'm quite sure though that it's gonna be those 2 things, so many small mistakes, and not using GPs extensively enough. Something I could imagine but don't think is also that the path of Research could be off and that you don't trade well enough, it's a common mistake to also research too many techs like i. e. Calendar, Construction, Aesthetics, Literature, Drama, Monarchy, Feudalism, Music and so on while one could be following the beeline to Liberalism already which is CoL -> CS -> Paper -> bulb Edu.

---------------

Regarding the scaling itself: I also didn't like normal speed and greatly preferred Marathon, but with becoming a better player, one actually loves how well every move on standard must be made to get the decisive advantage those 10T earlier, which are like 50T on Marathon.

Greatest disadvantage of all speeds beside Marathon definately is the greater unit-costs (units cost 1.5 times as much) , also Workers are more inefficient because 1T to move onto a Forrest is like 1/4 wasted moves while on Marathon it's only 1/10.

As said, both are completely different and cannot really be compared, if you play as long as me, you'll love that techs simply don't need 10-40T so one can feel the progress one makes during a single session. When playing Marathon I usually completely lose every feeling for the game because I sometimes don't even get 1 tech or 1 GP during a turnset.

Still: Conquering a complete map with 1 or 2 types of units is very fun. I agree with 1 unit = only being 2/3rds of one empire or war being silly in the beginning, but in the end, all units are the same, and it doesn't matter which type a unit is as long as it wins.

 

[GreatWhiteHope]

REXing to 8 cities makes getting Liberalism already difficult because Settlers are so expensive, still you should be able to Lib at 700 AD at latest.

The extensive rexing must have been due to map setting's landmass size. With much more land than a regular pangea, my only option was to grab as much land as possible, building 9 cities total just to keep up with the AIs. DeGaulle had 17 cities.

I ended up getting liberalism at 800 AD. But I guess from this point onward is where my question lies:


Me:
800 AD - liberalism
1000 ad - attacking with 26 upgraded cuirs
1420 ad - just 72 units built. game not even close to won.


Better player:
960 ad - liberalism
1000 ad - attacking with an unknown number of upgraded cuirs, but certainly less than 50
1490 ad - 232 units built. game won.


But building let's say 160 cavalry in 40 turns with ~15 functional cities should be easy. In each city you'd only have to produce a unit every 3.75 turns. To whip every 3 to 4 turns would require +8 food for your cities if you're whipping 7 to 4, not counting overflow, forges, or police state, which combined would reduce our food requirement to +7 or even +6. Still, 6 farms is quite a lot for a city without a food resource.

I think my shortcoming was that I wasn't whipping 7 to 4 at the highest possible rate. I was often intermittently whipping 10 to 8, hoping to keep towns worked and specialists employed. I certainly didn't have +8 food. I was also forced to switch out of police state because rep specialists were the only thing keeping me north of 300 beakers per turn. I was afraid my economy would crash before rifling. I was down to only 97 bpt at one point before I switched to free religion/representation. Maybe my game also suffers from long-term science deficiencies? What's even more unbelievable is the amount of infrastructure the better player was able to build.

The 100 ad save is already posted and I've attached 3 more saves. The war pretty much stalled out by the 1600s and I couldn't finish them off with cavalry, as DeGaulle simply got too big for my production to overwhelm. If I had a hundred more cavs (lol) I would've gotten the early domination. Instead I ended up just getting the space race win at 1908, after having to rebuild like 8 spaceship parts. It's actually the worst game I've won since I started playing deity, despite having gotten off to a decent start.

What's a good spaceship finish date on standard/normal?

 

[sossos]

@GreatWhiteHope

It is true that better players can maximize the return rate out of each turn, but you don't need to be too dismayed as the random factors also play an important role on when the game is finished.

Let's take a common strategy as example.
1.Peace period: focus all on economic growth until a key tech is obtained, like lib or military tradition.
2.War period: then focus on military growth until the world is conquered.
3.If there's any unexpected attack in the peace period, load the save to prepare for the war.

Here's the question: when to prepare for the potential war? There must be an optimum point at which you need to switch from growth to war preparation, but you never know the exact turn if you don't know the random number. This is a gambling, though you can still control the risk and achieve the optimum expectation. However, the optimum expectation is based on statistical analysis, so in most cases it's not the best result in a specific case.

Therefore, which strategy would you choose? A strategy which is statiscally better if you take 100 random numbers as population, or a strategy which is best for only one random numbe? In your game, would you choose to turn the slide bar of "war-growth"---if there is a virtual one--- from 70/30 to 100/0?

This kind of decsion making are widely spread in every trun of the games, so it's never easy to decide the ultimate "best" strategy. This is like what you make decision in the stock market. A sophisticated decision making system is more important than winning in one or two games.

All in all, I think you don't need to be stuck at one single game, but play more and improve your own decision making system.

Dislike standard/normal? I think the standard/normal is the most balanced one. In Marathon/Epic games, it's easy to become the world lead with ancient units; in quick games, ancient units are almost useless. While in standard game, you can still get the edge over other rivals by ancient wars, but you still need to balance between military and growth. IMO it's the most interesting part in strategy games to balance between multiple factors. An extreme stragy which can be applied in all scenarios will just make me quit from the game.

 

[MyOtherName]

I think my shortcoming was that I wasn't whipping 7 to 4 at the highest possible rate. I was often intermittently whipping 10 to 8, hoping to keep towns worked and specialists employed. I certainly didn't have +8 food.

You don't need +8 food: a willingness to deplete the population of large cities works too.

I've not tried it myself, but I've seen it claimed that a big part of why the Cuirasier/Cavalry final war works is because you can make up your losses by whipping away the population of conquered cities.

 

[sinimusta]

@GreatWhiteHope

It is true that better players can maximize the return rate out of each turn, but you don't need to be too dismayed as the random factors also play an important role on when the game is finished.

Let's take a common strategy as example.
1.Peace period: focus all on economic growth until a key tech is obtained, like lib or military tradition.
2.War period: then focus on military growth until the world is conquered.
3.If there's any unexpected attack in the peace period, load the save to prepare for the war.

This shouldn't be called a strategy but cheating. The game already provides us the WHEOORN notice so imo players have an ok chance to predict incoming invasions without reload. Also scouting AI civs and locating their stacks is a good trick too.

 

[sossos]

This shouldn't be called a strategy but cheating. The game already provides us the WHEOORN notice so imo players have an ok chance to predict incoming invasions without reload. Also scouting AI civs and locating their stacks is a good trick too.

I agree with you, but you can't prevent it from happening if a game is not run in HOF mod.

This extream example is used here to illustrate why the random factor can change the game result. Even if you notice the WHEOORN, your strategy has to be tailored and not as optimal as the original plan.

 

[Kid R]

@OP

Yes absolutely play the game how you like it and don't worry about comparing yourself to others - you are unique!

And anyway as you're seeing in this thread, if you want to compete with "the best" on any settings you'll be entering a world of micromanagement pain

Civ 4 maps have too much food, period. Hence max hammer output requires slavery micro. My advice is to do what I do and WB extra hills in all your cities. Same result, no micro

 

[Seraiel]

I agree with you, but you can't prevent it from happening if a game is not run in HOF mod.

This extream example is used here to illustrate why the random factor can change the game result. Even if you notice the WHEOORN, your strategy has to be tailored and not as optimal as the original plan.

If someone goes WHOOHRN and you think it's against you, just bribe someone onto him.