[mod][Warlord] Better Tomorrow

[fuch1141]

I uploaded the problem file and you replied -



thanx for the quick reply.

I noticed in the release notes for version 0.54 you have already fixed one of type of "waiting for other civs" problem.

the link to the compressed file of version 04.29 is below -

http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/75869/Better_Tomorrow_0.429.rar

ok, I know what the problem is.

This is a known issue of Better AI, and you can remove the file:"CvGameCoreDLL.dll" in Mod\Better Tomorrow\Assets, and load the game again.

Hope it will solve the problem.

 

[joelwest]

ok, I know what the problem is.

This is a known issue of Better AI, and you can remove the file:"CvGameCoreDLL.dll" in Mod\Better Tomorrow\Assets, and load the game again.

Hope it will solve the problem.

using the standard Warlord dll as you suggest above fixed the problem and enabled me to continue.

this does raise the issue of what functionality the dll upgrade was supposed to impart, and why not using this dll has no apparent affect on the game.

or maybe it does change the game?

which leads me to the topic of "cruise missile v Aegis, not a pretty sight."

what follows is spoiler of the relative merits of each as currently implemented and a number of suggested fixes.

======================================

Spoiler :

the situation I am in my current gameplay (England v Korea and a very weak Persia) is that I have cut off the oil of Korea and this prevents them off from building any of the following -

A)
new air units (they already have gunships & 20 jet fighters) EXCEPT the cruise missile,

B)
the most powerful land forces (special forces and modern armor tanks, the latter are prey to already built gunships however), and

C)
the vanilla Civ 4 does not cut off battleships since Ur can alternatively be used. I suggest changing this so battleships now run only on oil or perhaps a new strategic resource such as tungsten or molybdenum.



my original plan was to build stacks of battleship/Aegis/destroyer/carrier for coastal city and land attacks, to eventually wall in all Korean ports with battleship/Aegis and to invade with battleship/Aegis/transport.

this plan is not working.



the cruise missile and Aegis are not part of the vanilla Civ 4 so you are free to design them like as you feel.

I have the following observations in this regard -

1)
the cruise missile functions as a "souped up" stealth bomber whose only weakness compared to the latter is two tiles less range (8 v 10).

despite such a superior force unlike the stealth bomber the cruise missile does not require both oil and aluminum, or indeed any strategic resource.

one fix would be for the cruise missile to ALSO require uranium or coal (in addition to oil and aluminum) since the cruise missile is so powerful.

my greater preference is for a fix that adds tungsten as a new game strategic resource, and make cruise missiles require oil AND tungsten.

it makes no game sense to me for a player lacking the correct strategic resources to be able to build a weapon more powerful than the resource-intensive stealth bomber.

2)
the cruise missile is EARLIER in the tech tree than the stealth bomber. the cruise missile requires rocketry and computers. the stealth bomber requires flight, computers AND robotics (the latter itself requires computers).

one way this would make game sense (providing the resource problem is also addressed, see point one above) is to make the cruise missile stationary, i.e. it cannot be rebased. as it stands now a player could put 20 cruise missiles in a tile and wipe out an entire stack in one city and two turns later rebase the fleet and wipe out another army potentially far, far away.

I have not tried this tactic (yet), but this seems plausible. I do know the stealth bomber is currently limited to four or five enemy attacks per tile. if the stealth bomber is to occur later in the tech tree than the cruise missile it should not have any such limitations on the number of attacking units per tile per turn. (this may be a vanilla Civ 4 parameter you have to override.)

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

one fix to the imbalance of stealth bombers and cruise missiles would be to make rocketry enable cruise missiles and computers enable stealth bombers (i.e., reverse their current prerequisites). the BIG downside of this fix is that the window of opportunity of using bombers becomes very small.

another type of fix would be to limit the number of cruise missiles to one per tile. I have not (yet) tried putting multiple units in a tile, but the Civilopedia lists no such restriction.

or make the cruise missile stationary, i.e. not capable of being rebased.

either of the above two fixes only partially offsets the huge advantage of cruise missiles over stealth bombers,

the fix I favor the most is to move cruise missiles to a tech later than both computers and robotics, i.e. the very last tech tree column. (if still too powerful, one of the use modifiers above could be used.)

to repeat point one, I would also favor requiring cruise missiles to require both oil and tungsten resources. tungsten as a resource could be revealed with computers or robotics.

3)
the submarine is invisible to all units except the destroyer. the Koreans own no destroyers (I killed them all off, and F5 reports none hiding in ports). how come at least two of my subs were hit by their cruise missiles? (the Persians do not have access to this tech.)

I did not bother to put an Aegis on top of my subs since supposedly the enemy cannot fire at a target it cannot see.

perhaps you need to adjust the code for cruise missiles so that they no longer see subs without the info coming from active destroyers?

4)
"the unstoppable force meets the immovable object."

the Civilopedia states that the cruise missile has a 100% evasion rate meaning no air units currently in the game can stop it. the Civilopedia also states the Aegis has a 90% evasion rate (almost as good), but 300 times more evasion against cruise missiles (!!!).

as a matter of strategy one or two Aegis per naval fleet on a tile will take of incoming enemy aircraft >= to 90%, so I naively assumed I was safe from air attack since the cruise missile had "no chance" with a "300 times defense."

wrong!!!

my fleet protected by an Aegis was severely damaged by a cruise missile. (I can send you the gamefiles it you want me to.) please check your code to verify the Aegis works as intended. (or am I to believe that I experienced an attack with a likelihood of success of about 1 in 300?)

my preferred fix is to adjust the code so that it is totally impossible for an Aegis protected tile to suffer cruise missile damage.

or if you do desire to make it possible for a cruise missile to successfully attack an Aegis, the actual odds need to be stated in the Civilopedia. (the stated 300 times protection rate is highly misleading.)

4)
the SAM infantry units were added to the vanilla Civ4 game in this mod. one has a range of one and the other a range of two.

by noting my air unit losses, this translates into either a 3 x 3 grid of protection or a 5 by 5 grid of protection. (please update the Civilopedia to state this if it is correct.)

given the use of land based SAM infantry units, I think it is entirely reasonable for the naval based Aegis to have at least range one protection, i.e. a 3 x 3 grid of protection, from missile attacks (if such attacks are allowed, see above).

the Civilopedia does not state whether the Aegis has ranged protection or not. so my current assumption is that it only protects the one water tile it sits on.

my suggestion is to either have a "standard Aegis" with range one protection and a "super Aegis" added with range two protection (enabled later in the tech tree). or alternatively to have the same tech that enables 4 plus first strikes (in the last tech tree column) to also enable range one and two Aegis protection promotions (with the flanking promotion as a prereq to both).

to conclude I thought the Aegis would solve my cruise missile problems, but it has not done so.

under current game conditions the Koreans have four cruise missiles. this means I will l will suffer heavy damage in four tiles (including subs) if I park any naval units within 8 tiles of the cruise missile locations. this will occur even if I take out these four cities since the missiles can be rebased.

it is a mystery to me why the Koreans do not put a cruise missile in every one of their coastal cities.

this oversight must be due to the fact they are still focusing on a space race victory (although Peter won with a cultural victory long ago). consequently the AI is not sufficiently valuing the protection cruise missiles as currently configured actually provide.

I have never played a mod of Civ 3 or Civ 4 that so discouraged "up close and personal" naval action near an opponent's shoreline, so the mod as currently configured raises a big balance issue for me.

for fixes, see my suggestions above in the spoiler.

btw, my intent is constructive criticism.

since my game turns are now taking at least four hours each I have alot invested in playtesting your mod, and want to make it better.

 

[fuch1141]

Thank you joelwest for your advice and hours of testing, I really appreciate it.

1.
AI and Human player are supposed that they can't support large amount of cruise missiles because of high upkeep, but this mechanism fails due to free units supporting which make cruise missile is virtually free to support. I have a plan to fix this problem, the cruise missiles evasion rate will be changed to 90% rather than 100%, and it still makes sense because attacked party still have chance to retaliate the cruise missile launch site, and yes, it will requires aluminum to construct cruise missiles.


2.
The dll is a AI component(see "Better AI" project), so player can add/remove it at any time.


Thanks again!

--
Cruise missiles have been rebalanced(2007/02/02)

 

[joelwest]

Cruise missiles have been rebalanced(2007/02/02)

please explicate in light of the suggestions for cruise missiles I previously made

in my current game cruise missiles are making short work of the Koreans now that I have a foothold in their territory.

 

[joelwest]

file is attached

http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploa...92_Pusan_about_to_be_captured.CivWarlordsSave

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this is for year 2092, 42 years (turns) after the normal game end

the game apparently does alot of calcs when a city is captured and this can cause a slow response. however I saved the game then attempted to capture Pusan four straight times with my armored tank in the tile NE of it and this crashed (!) the game every time. I also tried rebooting and this did not help.

since I am ever so close to finishing off Korea I would like to know what I can do to continue playing.

as previously suggested I disabled the AI dll in the root.

this is for the same version of the mod as previously sent to you for diagnostic purposes.

until I hear back from you I will start a new game playing as Japan in the newest version of the mod.

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

UPDATE Feb 11, 2007 -

I played as Japan up to the year 2056 and the same error happened again. I was about to take Madrid with my mobile SAM from the SW direction when the game crashed. I tried recreating the gameplay up to that point, but it crashed again.

as previously suggested I disabled the AI dll in the root.

this is for version 0.541.

file is attached

http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploa...adrid_to_fall.CivWarlordsSave.CivWarlordsSave

I would also like to finish off this game. until this city taking problem is resolved I am going to have to move on to testing another mod.

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

regarding your re-balancing of the cruise missile, one my cruise missiles did suffer injury and one of the enemy's did fail to land.

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I did not appreciate until this current game how powerful the AEGIS can be if docked in a port. you specced it to extend its 90% coverage to four squares away. if your civ has mostly coastal cities, this is in affect "SDI for aircraft." was it your intention for this protection to extend to land tiles as well as sea tiles?

 

[Deadmarsh]

What's the name/performer of the start menu track?
I like it

 

[joelwest]

Thank you joelwest for your advice and hours of testing, I really appreciate it.

still awaiting a solution to the game hang of trying to capture a Korea city with a tank so I have moved on to a new game of this mod playing Japan.

I must say that on the surface the only strong benefit the Japs have is the shale plant building which powers cities without resources. the "improved" UU I did not end up using since I was isolated away from the other players until recently (after the year 2000) in the game.

the kamikaze special promotion I did try, but it was unclear based upon the Civilopedia how it is supposed to work. does it only destroy itself at +40% if it cannot win the battle, or does it always destroy itself when it fights the first time? I had a kamikaze unit I thought was strong enough to kill another unit but my unit was hosed anyway.

my suggestion is that for this promotion to be most useful the unit should not die unless it loses the battle. either that or raise the boost to more than 40%. since I was unsure how it worked I stopped using the kamikaze promotion early in the game.

this particular game I am playing also had a strange distribution of bonus resources although the game setting I chose was "normal."

the Koreans and the Japs each had access to one oil resource. the other three civs did not have any access. (apparently Spain or Korea wiped out Stalin early in the game, but Russia still has one pioneer/settler unit left in foreign territory giving Russia a gamescore of 11. I noticed Spain and Korea also had stranded settler units they never redeployed or abandoned.)

I believe there was only one tile of coal on the whole map (small/5 civ Earth smartmap). there also was only about three tiles of Ur on the whole map.

does your mod seek to ensure each civ has some chance of getting oil, Ur, Al, or coal? or are these resources just randomly distributed without respect to one civ getting potentially none of them nearby?

in the game files I attached later in the post I "corrected" this by giving China access to coal and Spain access to Ur. I was not so generous as to give Spain and China access to oil however. Spain would have had to conquer Korea to get oil, and Spain only went to war with China, not Korea. China is on the opposite side of the globe from the two relatively nearby oil resources.

========================

to address the subject line of this post ("special forces invisibility error"), see spoiler below -

Spoiler :

I have experience as Victoria using MI-6 special forces in version 0.429 of this mod (my previous game). in version 0.429 the fact that the MI-6 special forces unit is supposedly invisible was not implemented as far as I could tell. I could see the Korean's special forces and they could see mine (as far as I could tell).

in my current game with version 0.541 of the mod playing as Japan I had the strange experience of my special forces unit (this time not MI-6) being invisible to the point the enemy (Korea again) occupies the same tile without being attacked by my unit. (was this an addition of functionality between revs of the mod?)

see attached files for years 2018 and 2019 (before and after) NE and SW of the city of Seoul.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/75869/Tokogawa_AD-2018.CivWarlordsSave.CivWarlordsSave

http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploa...or_near_Seoul.CivWarlordsSave.CivWarlordsSave

not being stopped by my more powerful special forces unit, the Korean gunships and SAM infantry walked right past my special forces units to the NE of Seoul and devastated my gunships and other nearby units.

a Korean modern Corps ended up in the same tile as my special forces unit SW of Seoul.

it is clear that two civs at war cannot have a unit in the same square at the end of a turn since as soon as one entered this occupied tile combat would commence, so I know this occurence SW of Seoul is an error.

what is unclear to me is how you intended for invisibility to work in the first place for land units.

as you know invisibility is part of vanilla Civ 4 with the naval unit submarine, and this functionality is retained in your mod.

in the case of subs invisibility is a property that makes up for its weakness relative to "AEGIS type" destroyers and battleships, and this special property forces a civ to build "plain vanilla" destroyers in order to find and destroy subs.

in the case of the special forces unit in your mod, it is by far the most powerful unit in terms of strength, mobility, and lack of effective counters (no other advanced units do well against melee units). in fact the only counter against the special forces unitis is air strikes, but these can be defended against if there is a SAM unit nearby. only cruise missiles have any hope of knocking these units off, and at that it would take at least two strikes.

so why add to its power by also making it invisible? it is bad enough to get behind in the game and see more powerful units show up and thrash your civ. I would think it be unacceptable (no fun factor) if these uber units you cannot stop were also invisible (except to themselves???).

my suggestion is to make a new unit that is about strength 24 and make it invisible if that is something you feel compelled to add to your mod. in addition there needs to be a counter unit other than itself (unless this new unit is to be merely a revved up spy unit) that can pierce its invisibility.

as always, my intent is constructive criticism.

 

[joelwest]

during much of my current game playing as Japan I noticed the priest specialist received 2 hammers and 1 coin, one more hammer than vanilla Civ 4 allows. the next poster correctly pointed out that this is the correct function of the Angor Wat wonder.

Spoiler :

as it turns out this is not a make or break error and certainly not as drastic as the invisibility error or the city taking causing a game crash (the two previous errors I reported). as far as game play the error obviously discouraged the use of the engineer specialist since the priest specialist had the same output, two hammers, and one coin as well. this meant I would built a temple as soon as I built a forge into order to get the added advantage the priest specialist gave over the engineer specialist.

 

[Bastian-Bux]

Did you at any time build Angkor Wat, or conquered a city with it?

Cause what you describe sounds like the Angkor Wat bonus.

 

[kstater4civ]

Hi, great mod. Really enjoying it. I have a question to ask though. Has anyone else had a CTD when they try to build the skyscraper or mobile artillery?

 

[joelwest]

in my current game playing as Japan I was nuked by Spain, but did not have the Ecology tech to scrub the fallout. I noticed after several turns one of the three glowing squares stopped glowing.

Spain was nuked by China and I never saw the fallout worker so I think its city also benefited from "natural radiation healing."

is this behavior part of vanilla Civ 4 or an enhancement in your mod?

 

[Bastian-Bux]

Its part of vanilla civ. And yes, it happens incredible fast. I once nuke saturated several countries hoping that I'd this way keep them from achieving space victory before I won the time victory. In some cases it took only 3 years for the radiation to go away.

 

[joelwest]

Spontaneous disappearance of radiation is part of vanilla Civ 4.

And yes, it happens incredible fast. I once nuke saturated several countries hoping that I'd this way keep them from achieving space victory before I won the time victory. In some cases it took only 3 years for the radiation to go away.

Does anyone know if the rate of spontaneous disappearance of radiation depends on whether the city hit by the nuke was protected by bomb shelters or not?

In the case of my current Better Tomorrow mod game with me playing as Japan, all three countries left in the game had SDI many turns before the nukes started, and building bomb shelters for productive cities seems to be a rational corollary to funding SDI since it is the only other way to defend against nukes. In my own case the city that hit and had rapid spontaneous disappearance of radiation WAS protected by a bomb shelter. (In fact every city of mine with more than about a 8 hammer production output was protected, ie all possible "rational" targets.)

====================================

In the Better Tomorrow mod the AEGIS class destroyer according to the Civilopedia provides 90% defense against aircraft in its 9 x 9 = 81 tile protection grid (this indeed works, even for land tiles as it turns out), and "even better defense" against missiles but only against misile attacks against itself in its own (water) tile. In the latest version of this mod AEGIS missile protection still does not protect the surrounding non-AEGIS ships from cruise missiles (and likely nuke missiles as well) in its own tile, much less in an 81 tile grid.

My own preference for the Better Tomorrow mod is that in a future version of the mod the AEGIS would treat missiles like aircraft in the sense that there would also be an 81 tile protection grid against missiles for all units and land tiles with improvements around the AEGIS. (With this added functionality it would not be unreasonable for the price of the AEGIS to go up.)

Since nukes can entirely change the flavor of a game, does anyone know if there are any other mods that have more extensive nuke protection than vanilla Civ 4?

 

[Bastian-Bux]

No idea if there is a connection with bomb shelters, though the cities I nuked definitely had none. Iirc I used a bit more then 100 nukes on 50% of a large great plains map. The last radiation was definitely gone 10-20 game turns (epic or marathon) after the last nuke drop. So yeah, it was a complete waste of time, as I was hit by desertification as hard as the others. What pop they lost due to the nukes, I lost by starvation.

 

[joelwest]

No idea if there is a connection with bomb shelters, though the cities I nuked definitely had none.

how do you know this? the bomb shelters may have been destroyed when the nukes hit.

I used a bit more then 100 nukes on 50% of a large great plains map. The last radiation was definitely gone 10-20 game turns (epic or marathon) after the last nuke drop. So yeah, it was a complete waste of time, as I was hit by desertification as hard as the others. What pop they lost due to the nukes, I lost by starvation.

how in the world were you able to stockpile so many nukes without ruining your economy? if you had that much extra mfg capacity why didn't you convert it to research to win the tech tree race and then to SS components to win the space race?

in the Better Tomorrow mod nukes are more expensive than cruise missiles, and in my opinion not nearly as effective if you know the enemy has built SDI and likely bomb shelters. only one in four hits with SDI defense and at that it only does 25% damage if protected by a bomb shelter. you would have to target 16 nukes on one city to have any statistical odds of a complete kill.

in contrast the 16 cheaper cruise missiles will reduce 16 full strength units by 50 to 70%. of course the downside it that their range is only eight tiles so you have to be near enough to use them, likely already at war.

in my current Better Tomorrow mod game playing as Japan Spain's nuclear gambit failed miserably. China rapidly built SDI and later used nukes to damage one of Spain's cities. it was partly Spain's accumulation of nukes (seven) that prompted me to build an invasion fleet near Spanish soil. that in turn caused Spain to overreact and declare war. interestingly enough they then had to wait for me before launching their nukes. I could not of course stop their nukes (even with SDI), but I captured one of their cruise missile cities before they could launch one of that type of missile from it.

this is one of the few Civ 4 games I have played where the AI went the nuke route instead of beelining for a SS victory. Spain had previously had an inconclusive war with neighboring China and also saw that it was behind in game stats to both China and Japan. apparently feeling vulnerable to attack, rather than building up its economy it decided to go nuclear.

the only way a nuke strategy can work is if all your opponents have relatively no research or mfg capacity. otherwise as soon as a potential nuclear agressor builds the Manhattan project all of his likely opponents (those with any decent mfg capacity) will built SDI and bomb shelters before they can ever launch a nuke at them. in my current game I believe China built SDI before Spain did although the latter (as it turned out) wasted resources building the Manhattan project.

if you have that much of a mfg and economy advantage over your opponents, then a nuke strategy is unnecessary anyway. you can win either with a domination, time , or SS victory.

=============================

discusssion regarding victory conditions, now that the topic has been raised ----

I have already disabled time and culture as victory conditions in my own Civ 4 games and am now inclined to also disable the spaceship victory condition.

what follows is a description of my current Civ 4 game and why it has led me to want to disable the SS victory condition.

Spoiler :

in my current game I am playing the EE3 mod as Henry the 8th and this placed me next to Scotland on the map I chose to play the game with. I spent a good deal of the early part of the game blocking Scotland from expanding, and even briefly lost London at one point.

by the time I had finally conquered Scotland many other countries had prospered quite a bit since they did not have neighbors quite as close. France in particular had the luxury of founding two great satellite cities that bankrolled them the rest of the game.

Justinian won a SS victory in 1966, but I do not think he did completely conquered any other country. at any rate I had the lead in mfg capacity and crop yield and was only a coupla hundred points behind in gamepoints. my biggest weakness was "power", but this is a highly misleading stat since cavemen warriors count as much as mechanized infantry in the troup count. Justinian and quite a few other countries have a tech lead, but none seem able or willing to fight.

it is just a matter of time before I get them (yes, I play after a victory condition has been met). in the EE3 mod religion plays a big role and France is my unshakable ally since I founded Christianity and it soon spread to France. Bohemia is also an ally. using either their troups or resources as an aid, the other powers will eventually fall.

in the EE3 there are something like 15 nations, so it will take a long time for the battle plan to shake out.

all of which is my windy way of saying the SS victory means nothing in terms of who potentially can control territory.

in future Civ 4 games I think I will set domination and diplomatic as the only victory conditions. otherwise the AI inevitably goes for the SS win and so usually researches artillery to bypass the need to research flight (and hence develop a strong offense/defense).

 

[Bastian-Bux]

I know it, because I was playing a time gauntlet. And my enemies where WAY behind in tech. If I'd not been such a green n00b at that time, I'd not wasted 100 nukes on them, when they never stayed a chance to get even close to space victory.

That (time gauntlet) is also the reason why I couldn't go for another victory condition. I could have gone to domination halfway through the game by just conquering 2-3 cities. instead I had to gift several, due to excessive cultural growth.

 

[joelwest]

I know it, because I was playing a time gauntlet.

does this mean you were playing to win the standard whose is ahead in points in 2050???

And my enemies where WAY behind in tech. If I'd not been such a green n00b at that time, I'd not wasted 100 nukes on them, when they never stayed a chance to get even close to space victory.

if the standard victory conditions are enabled a cultural victory is also possible. I recently had a game where a lowly civ won at 2043 with a cultural victory. they had units less than half the power of everyone else. in fact I wiped them out in seven turns after they "won."

it was due to this experience I now disable cultural victory. I do not want to continue to check victory conditions to make sure some no account has somehow got near the magic cultural number in three of his cities.

That (time gauntlet) is also the reason why I couldn't go for another victory condition. I could have gone to domination halfway through the game by just conquering 2-3 cities. instead I had to gift several, due to excessive cultural growth.

I do not understand why you had to give your cities to the other civs. if you had excessive cultural growth you would have ADDED cities that flipped to your civ.

 

[Bastian-Bux]

Yes, I won that game in 2050 with highest score, and that was the aim for this gauntlet.

^^, maybe take a look at the HOF rules, to understand better what I'm talking about (and get addicted to HOF competition).

If you want to submit a game to the HOF tables, you have to enable all victory conditions. I was playing a gauntlet (a game with defined settings AND victory condition, though still all conditions must be enabled) at that time. Winning by domination, conquest or culture would have been easy early on. Actually I "lost" the gauntlet in a prior attempt by winning a cultural victory.

The reason that I had to give away cities was exactly what you state: I was gaining land/cities due to cultural influence. If you are already very close to domination limit, any additional city can trigger a domination victory. Which is nice by itself, but didn't count as "win" for this gauntlet.

 

[joelwest]

Yes, I won that game in 2050 with highest score, and that was the aim for this gauntlet.

^^, maybe take a look at the HOF rules, to understand better what I'm talking about (and get addicted to HOF competition).

If you want to submit a game to the HOF tables, you have to enable all victory conditions. I was playing a gauntlet (a game with defined settings AND victory condition, though still all conditions must be enabled) at that time. Winning by domination, conquest or culture would have been easy early on. Actually I "lost" the gauntlet in a prior attempt by winning a cultural victory.

The reason that I had to give away cities was exactly what you state: I was gaining land/cities due to cultural influence. If you are already very close to domination limit, any additional city can trigger a domination victory. Which is nice by itself, but didn't count as "win" for this gauntlet.

I see now by "gauntlet" you meant the Hall Of Fame (HOF) game rules.

I have never tried the HOF games, but if your were winning that easily, perhaps you need to bump up the difficulty level?!

I personally play at noble level in Civ 4 since the computer AI is even with you and does not get additional advantages. I did try one higher level once and got whomped. judging by the comments of others who win at the higher levels, I would prefer not to radically change the way I play so as to allow the AI to cheat and for me to still win.

on the other hand the noble level forces you to thoroughly know the game. if someone had never played the Civ series before I would advise them to try a much lower level so that can gain the confidence winning is possible. I admit I got whomped in my first Civ 3 game, even at a low level.

==================

back on the subject for the Better Tomorrow mod thread, I look forward to trying the mod again or resuming my old games once the "capture city crashes game" bug is fixed.

 

[Bastian-Bux]

^^, the HOF games range from Settler to deity. Played them all, won them all.

A gauntlet has exactly described conditions. Thats why i played chieftain only. Usually I also play on noble level now.