Spending money to upgrade units is really only worthwhile in three circumstances: (a) the unit has earned more promotions than a brand new one has or can obtain soon after it's been built; (b) a neighbour has launched a surprise attack and you need to beef up the nearest defenders; or (c) you have oodles of money to burn, in which case the game is probably as good as won. If none of the above apply, save your money.After letting the rage subside, I reloaded and tried to save my empire. Basically, I spent serious moola upgrading archers to longbowmen, then I pulled units completely out of ancillary cities and used them to buttress my two star cities.
Swordmen are best used to attack cities; they have a built-in bonus to that effect. Don't just look at a unit's strength, look at its other characteristics. To expand on Vaidd's point about spearmen's bonus versus mounted units, pretty much all of the units in Civ IV were designed in a paper-rock-scissors fashion, where every unit is a counter unit to another one, and has a counter unit against which it is much weaker in turn. So spearmen have a bonus against mounted units, but are weak against axemen, who have a bonus against other melee units. And so on and so forth.I make swordmen to retaliate, but he's across a river fortified in a forest. Becomes apparent that this is a bad idea. OTOH, with Heroic Epic finished, I can output a unit every turn. He doesn't seem to feel like attacking. I ask for peace, and am surprised that acquiesces.
What are catapults and trebuchets good for? When I attack a stack with them, they are the first unit pulled out of the stack to fight, they inflict seemingly no damage, and are smashed with one blow.
Does changing game speed to epic or marathon simply "stretch" the game ? Is there no change in basic gameplay balance at all?? Which is the speed best recommended ?
Walls and castles remain effective against non-gunpowder units. Try parking your stack next to a enemy city before you bombard away the defenses. Select a gunpowder unit, then a non-gunpowder unit; you should see the city's defense % change depending upon the selected attacker.So, one thing that puzzles me is this concept of obsolesence. My walls and castles will eventually stop working, and not just as attackers improve their tech, but simply as a result of my own research? I research rifling, and suddenly my walls stop repelling spearmen? Rifiling, in and of itself, doesn't offer me any new defensive buildings, so I'm seeing any internal logic.
Is there rhyme or reason to this I'm not seeing?
Does changing game speed to epic or marathon simply "stretch" the game ? Is there no change in basic gameplay balance at all?? Which is the speed best recommended ?
Good, I didn't think so, but when long time posters say something, it sometimes makes me wonder.
I have vanilla, I see they have Civ 4 complete on steam. Would it be worth it to get it? I love civ 4 and started playing it and 1 recently. What do i get from it that vanilla doesn't have?
Warlords, which adds some scenarios and new civs.
Beyond the Sword, which add those, Corporations, a Unique Building for each civ (UB), more civs, more units and buildings, a few wonders, Great Generals, better Espionage, better forts, and a few other things I am probably forgetting
Oh yeah, and for BtS, there are tons of downloadable mods out there, which add even more. Like the one in my sig (Special Forces (no, I'm not ashamed of advertising my mod in such a way ))
Believe me, it is worth it.
I never played Warlords. Nuff saidThe way you put the info is confusing . Great Generals, UBs, and vassals are from Warlords, but BTS includes (well, BTS) everything from Warlords except the scenarios (although the Complete version contains Warlords and BTS, so you get the scenarions).