Normal or Epic (or quick?)

Half of the banned civ3 exploits weren't as powerful as the not-banned ones. It's not fun to "game the game" by manipulating obscure game mechanics for a large advantage over the AI's. Things like capturing the great library in the late industrial or modern age. Or building cities in a perfect circle so corruption was equal with all cities. These most definitely do ruin the fun of the game. But if you don't use them then you can't compete in the GOTM. I did the palace jump in one of my gotm games for civ3. That was the only game I received a fastest finish reward...but I didn't feel good about it and felt dirty, like I was cheating, because I was. Because regardless of what the GOTM rules say, palace jumping was exploiting, no doubt about it.

edit: And sorry for taking this thread way off topic. All further posts will be in a different thread, should I have further posts to add.

 

I perfer normal speeds.

 

If it helps at all, on my completed Normal-length games, I have had average times of around 3.5 hours. I would probably take a bit longer on GOTMs, and most likely about 1.5 that time on higher difficulties, but I would estimate taking no more than ~10 hours for a CivIV GOTM on a difficulty level I have not yet beaten (assuming I actually survive to the end!)

 

Ship chaining has been in every civ since the beginning. I have no idea why the Firaxians like this "feature" but apparently they do. I don't like it but, as Alan says, it's part of the game and should certainly not be banned.

The only real exploit discovered so far is Moonsinger's anarchy domination trick. Leave it to her to find things like this

 

Actually, I didn't. I felt sure the designers would have removed this in Civ4 so I didn't even test it. As you say, chaining is effective in saving game time, but cumbersome. I don't know whether to be happy or sad that chaining is still around.

 

Ship chaining violates the turn mechanism because you create an instantanous action by using the movement of many different units in series. I have no real problem with it, but it is a pain in the ass. However, for consistency there should be an APC so you can accomplish the same effect on land.

Then you didn't think very deeply then did you? Look at the domain name up there ^^^. Then go directly to webster.com or dictionary.com and look up the word fanatic. I think that frames the context in which Civilization is to be discussed on these forums.

 

Well, I'm convinced (by this thread) that the choice that ship chaining allows - between transporting your army in one slow, massive group, and transporting your army quickly but in peicemeal fashion - is a strategically interesting one. So, I'm in favour of chaining in principle, it's just the fiddly implementation that is the problem. Mind you, I think it works a bit better in Civ4 than Civ3. I haven't yet had any of those galley juggling moments where I try to get two units from one galley to another, but end up with one unit in each galley, endlessly swapping places
I wonder if a good interface would be to allow one to waypoint units across fortified ships. Indeed, give transport ships their own fortify command whereby they lose all movement points until awoken. Instead, their transport capacity becomes a variable which reduces by 1 every time a unit hops across them. Hmm, interesting... <Paperbeetle strokes his beard, muttering, lost in thought>

 

Normal, please.

Epic is just too long. In an epic game everything leans toward military solution. Think about it. It takes longer (in turns) to build units and build improvments, so if an enemy gets into your territory and starts destroying things, he can do it at a faster rate relative to unit and improvment building. So, you need to build more units up front to counter the possible enemy attacks. And, he needs to build more units earlier to stock up for an attack. The game doen't feel balanced.

Normal, please.

 

Ship chaining is NOT possible in Civ4 as it was in Civ3. The act of waking a unit and moving to another ship counts as a full turn of movement. You can only jump from one ship to another, not over and over ala Civ3.

Go test it.

StanNP

 

You can chain between any number of ships. As I wrote above, I've done this many times. Other people have done it too. Do you think we're all lying?

It's true that loading a unit onto a ship uses all of its movement. But a unit with no movement remaining can still be activated and loaded onto another ship. And again, and again, and again.

 

Of course not. I just remember it not working for me.

 

Moving ot loading? If loading does not count as a full turn movement, than I do not see a difference with civ3 (cannot test it at the moment)

 

Loading does expend all remaining movement (as has been stated many times above). But it does not require that you have any movement left.

 

I don't like epic because it took me 50 hours to finish gotm2! The game was too much of chore. Is there an award most hours for playing one game?

 

I spent 3hrs more for 4otm2 than for 4otm1 and IMHO this was not so much due to epic, but lakes. I do not think that the game speed significantly affects the real time. If your research is slower, it means only that you can win earlier in terms of tech tree.

 

I am in the same boat as you. It is taking me FOREVER to finish this game. I play 1-3 sessions of it as time allows each day. I am pretty sure i am well past 50 hours. However, unlike you, I LOVE that part. The thing I do not love is going to these forums and not being able to read the spoiler 2 thread. We need a spoiler thread for each era.

Also 2 GOTM's would rock. One built for fast play and one built to take some serious time. This would accomadate more people and keep up the huge interest in these games. The spoilers for the fast games could be opened quickly while the spoilers for the long games could be opened later. Too much work?

Or an official "practice" GOTM released when the first screen is released. This game would have all the same or similar settings the the GOTM. This would let all the players play and openly discuss the practice game in the down time in between the official game without the spoiler blues.

 

I tend to agree with you somewhat. As Shillen noted, all the ice tiles at the top and bottom of the Lakes map means you have to pretty much have to either control ~90% of the 'useful' tiles, or else build a lot of useless ice cities to reach the domination limit. That means you probably had to take over at least 1 extra civ than on a different sort of map. If you tend to micromanage everything like I do, that adds a great deal of time to the game. I'd like to see what epic feels like on a continents map for comparison.

 

@Grogs - I almost post a reply here, when I realized that I am about to commit a crime . See my reply in the 2nd 4OTM2 spoiler, post #46.

 

Definitely Epic - maybe even Marathon. I always finish the GOTM around the 11th, 12th (sometimes earlier).

 

I agree that playing lakes added time to the game. How many hours did you spend on gotm2?