Just started playing this game again after a long time. Some observed annoyances..

kelemvor

Chieftain
Joined
Aug 15, 2003
Messages
26
Location
Georgia
Keep in mind I've been on a long Galciv 2 and Alpha Centauri binge.


This is pretty much my first time giving the BTS expansion pack a go. Started on prince level, with the 'world builder' map script. Huge world, 12 opponents, normal speed. One thing that really bugs me right away is how cultural boundries extend into the sea, making naval exploration difficult without making treaties with everyone. I miss the AC borders a lot already!

My starting city started way up north with a few tundra squares, but having *5* bonus tiles in the sea more than made up for it! 2 crabs and 3 clams.
Not long after playing, around 1400 BC or so, someone had already circumvented the world! WTF? I hate that little sound the game makes when the goal is reached, its so depressing. The map script was really nice. Lots of mountains made me think more carefully about city placement. Flood plains would occasionally show up along tiles that weren't desert, which was a nice twist.

Another thing that bugs me slightly is how units will stay the same for 1000s of years. I started with Civ2, (and I *always* built Leonardo's workshop), and in AC its pretty easy and cheap to keep your units upgraded. Plus its a lot more believable having a 1-1-1 sentry around in the endgame on AC than it is having a Quechua warrior around in the industrial age on Civ.

Some cool things I noticed was how smart the AI could be. I had been playing a solid builder strategy with most of my relationships being pleased, friendly, and a few 'cautious'. Well all of a sudden China declares war on me, but they were half way across the world and they had half my score (I was in the lead, 100 points ahead of Hannibal). This is normally not a concern in other games, but 2 turns later a huge fleet with a small stack of musketeers and knights lands on one of my lightly defended cities... making amphibious assaults??? :confused: I was lazy on upgrading and replacing archers and it was well into the industrial age, so I lost a city. (I had machine gunners being trained too, :mad:)

Maybe I'm missing something on the governor settings? On AC you can control how the governor acts down to the minute detail. Once I get up to 15+ cities I usually set the smaller, frontier cities that are away from the action on autopilot, but sometimes they build odd things.

So anyway, i beat back the chinese and now my friendly Hannibal rival is edging close to me on the score race. I think the 'one more turn' syndrome has definitely set in!

I hear from apolyton that there is a 'alpha centauri' mod for BTS. I wonder how it plays!

Alright, enough of my ramblings! More gaming awaits! :D
 
This is pretty much my first time giving the BTS expansion pack a go. Started on prince level, with the 'world builder' map script. Huge world, 12 opponents, normal speed. One thing that really bugs me right away is how cultural boundries extend into the sea, making naval exploration difficult without making treaties with everyone. I miss the AC borders a lot already!

Caravels (from Optics) can travel through closed borders, so your ships will be able to poke through eventually. Late game I think submarines can as well. Just wait to you get privateers -- read: pirates -- and then you get to have lots of fun. (Basically a ship with hidden nationality, so you can take it to foreign waters and pillage seafood, sink ships and blockade harbors without declaring war or them knowing its you. At least until frigates come and ruin your fun.)

As for the early circumnagivation race, that is bizarrely early. Must be something with your weird map script.

Maybe I'm missing something on the governor settings? On AC you can control how the governor acts down to the minute detail. Once I get up to 15+ cities I usually set the smaller, frontier cities that are away from the action on autopilot, but sometimes they build odd things.

What exactly are you talking about here? You aren't actually setting your cities to auto-build improvements, are you?
 
kelemvor said:
around 1400 BC or so, someone had already circumvented the world! WTF?
This has to be a record or a typo for a huge map. 1400 AD I can see but BC on huge/normal speed. Seems impossible. Or a scout with a clear grassland path all the way around.
 
About the globe circumvention - the map trading counts to this too. You don't really need to circumvent the globe - you may just trade maps and still be first to around the globe:)

About the BtS - after zillion of patches and expansions (which serve as a patches too) the game at last is almost balanced. Providing you turn off the annoyng diplomatic victory of course.
 
Some cool things I noticed was how smart the AI could be. :D

Stop. Right. There.

The AI is not smart. The AI is rubbish (compared to the human). It makes ridiculous decisions and doesnt know its arse from its elbow (metaphorically speaking)!
 
About the globe circumvention - the map trading counts to this too. You don't really need to circumvent the globe - you may just trade maps and still be first to around the globe:)

About the BtS - after zillion of patches and expansions (which serve as a patches too) the game at last is almost balanced. Providing you turn off the annoyng diplomatic victory of course.

Paper in 1400 BC? I mean...I guess you could oracle CS and bulb it :lol:. But the AI doing THAT?! Not likely.

On marathon with a scout either way on a map that stretches the distance east to west by land it'd be possible but difficult though.
 
Paper in 1400 BC? I mean...I guess you could oracle CS and bulb it :lol:. But the AI doing THAT?! Not likely.

On marathon with a scout either
way​
on a map that stretches the distance east to west by land it'd be possible but difficult though.

True. Very unlikely. The only thing I can think of is if by chance a chain of continents/small islands around the globe with adjacent coastal tiles... which never happened to me:)


As for the "smart" AI - it is the same AI as in the previous Civs. Firaxis failed in their ambitious idea to create "smart" AI. So they compensated the dumb AI through giving bonuses even at the easiest level. And on noble (when Firaxis says the AI and the human are equal) the bonuses for the AI are between 30% and up to 70%. And this is called "equal". This is the main reason why the AI can support 200 units with just 2 cities and still be equal with the tech research; and why the AI proceeds to spam cities at every free tile. In my last game (monarch) I took an enemy city and for the few turns untill the captured city was in resistance the AI smuggled a settler and made a city in the tiles between my empire and the captured city!
Especially dumb is the AI in the diplomacy. It doesn't conduct the diplomacy according his priorities but according how cordial are his relations with another civ. Which translated mean if you are patient enough to endure his unlogical and senseless whims you will be his best friend and can make him (it?) commit even suicide. The only logical thing so called AI dimplomacy is doing is not to trade techs when it builds a wonder.
 
Yeah, but "I circumcised the globe with my enormous Clipper" is much funnier.
 
Yeah, but "I circumcised the globe with my enormous Clipper" is much funnier.


I am 10 years old and don't understand!


Even funnier still! :lol:
 
Juts happened to me - absolutely random map - huge, fractal - and the landmass goes ALL THE WAY around the globe! Even no coastal tiles are needed.
 
Juts happened to me - absolutely random map - huge, fractal - and the landmass goes ALL THE WAY around the globe! Even no coastal tiles are needed.

Lol...I forgot to mention this earlier, but on maps such as this, why would one care though :p? The naval units nobody is going to use now move faster over that lake or water with no cities or resources across it.
 
Boats move full speed through cultural borders though... When you are at war...
 
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