(Rant) Why I love and hate Civ IV

[Major Tom]

From pattern (experience - no code diver) how AI settle cities (blue circles high priority - if have own settler near, can even predict where AI will settle) and move settlers - if "Spot" to settle allow city to be built, unit will go there. As soon as I settle that spot (or near it), unit usually turns around and go back (unless there is another location near that AI would take). Actually even human could see in dark area of map if there is good place to settle (by AI "thinking") - when start new game, with settler selected can hold right mouse button and move around black tiles (undiscovered) - "build city" will highlight if there is good spot to settle (not every land tile though but can "read" size or configuration of land etc). So even human can "cheat"

Thanks, great tip. Didn't know about this

 

[dohh_]

Thank you dohh for taking the time to respond. Did not see your post until now.

My concern was that the AIs dont fight each other much at all.
Playing always war is something I have considered, but I thought it ment that the AIs are always in war with me, but never with each other, and war weariness would probably reach 100% of my population after the first 100 turns or so?

Speaking of war weariness ... that is another annoyance: the civilopedia says war weariness should only happen in "prolonged wars", but it certainly starts from first turns of warfare, and seems to increase 1-2 pop per turn. Conquering a neighbour can take 10 turns or so, and by then I have 12-16 unhappy (and massive starvation) in each city.

I have done so, tried to play on with out iron and bronze. One or two games, it can be a challenge. But if in 30+ games I have never built a horse unit (no horse archers, cavalry, knights .. ) because there pretty much there are NEVER any horses on any map, there is something buggy. It appears a large part of game revolves around cavalry somehow (including special anti-cav units like pikemen and spearmen). A civilization having a horse based UU is a disadvantage if horses are around only 10% of the time.

Won't units go obsolete before they even reach the battlefield? I play marathon since I even then units get obsolete too quickly. After swordsmen, I manage to build a few longbows, even fewer macemen and by now I have learned to never build musketmen or grenadiers. Riflemen come so soon after gunpowder. And even they get replaced too soon on marathon speed, but I still try to modernize my army to rifles. Maybe some of this is because of my crowded maps: all civs are smaller, with fewer cities so paying to upgrade a unit is prohibitively expensive, upgrading a single swordsman to a rifleman costs several turns of national income, so usually I have to build brand new units instead.

Never dared to play a huge map, the micro management kinda kills the games already on standard.. the micro that I find taking the longest time is workers, not cities. Where to go and what to improve next ... and every turn there are several workers needing attention. And game speed crawls down to 30 turns per hour or less.

I would expect worker micro management being the same ordeal on faster speeds, the number of decisions to be made depends on the number of tiles to improve ( = even worse on huge maps!) not on game speed.

Another micro annoyance is unit control. It seems impossible to select 10 units out of 60 on a square. Even if I shift click, it sometimes selects multiple units, and the selection method where you have to "scroll" the units (one by one) to find the unit you want to add to the group is ridiculous. And after you selected eight, the shift click fails and selects all units on the tile. Start over. Maybe BTS has fixed this nuisance?

Sorry, don't have much time to give detailed answers for all Your arguments.
If You cant play BTS, some issues will not be solved, that is why patches are for.. . Apart of additional content.

Anyway:
War weariness is interesting issue in few games (not every) and can be countered.
Try to beeline AH, BW or IW, then You would see those ressources faster.
Keeping units up to date is just one challenge if playing normal speed. Many things are differently. I would say, normal speed adds up 1,5 difficulty levels. Also there will be less money to milk out from AI, which is really important. At late stages speed evens, did You know that? You wont be playing faster until end.
Micro can be lessened significantly: use queue building, build science or money instead of buildings occassionaly. Also, very interesting, try 1 city challenge. Then try it with permanent alliances on. Again completely different games. Im not much of micro fan myself, thats why I play usually immortal, not deity. Immortal can be won with minimum micro at almost any settings.

Yeah, mass selection and also mass attacking is well improved in BTS.

Overall: seems You are bored, because You play underchallenged.

Seems You also overkill A LOT. I conclude it from "selecting 10 units out of 60". If You have to do that often, it means You waste time somewhere, which ends in boring game with no challenge. I very rarely have such armies, mostly when some army builder (charlemagne, justician etc goes out of control).

 

[salty mud]

OP says he has won immortal difficulty but raises some very basic questions.

Suspicious.

 

[AcaMetis]

Vanilla Marathon with odd settings (aggressive AI, no tech trading, maximum number of AIs, etc.) and BTS Standard with regular settings isn't really comparable, I think.

 

[Bibor]

There is a repetitive pattern of missing the game when I have not played it in a while, and feelings of irritation and annoyance once I do play. Maybe it is a me problem, maybe there are standard ways to deal with some of the irritable parts. I'll let you guys be the judge.

The cure for being irritable is to become knowledgable. Civ4 has its quirks, but all its systems are designed to work and fit together.

For example your grudge that "some civs require special resources and sometimes you don't get those resources". Well yes, the same could be said for other leader traits like a unique Courthouse. If you don't expand much, you don't actually need corthouses, so the uniqueness of that unique building is wasted, although you can build it.

It's also a door that swings both ways. What if you start next to Hatshepsut (Egypt) and you settle in a way that grabs her only horse resource? Now she is without it's "unique unit resource".

As people here often say: play the map, not the leader.

And yes, definitely grab BTS, and install BUG and BULL and possibly Blue Marble for basic modded, but unaltered gameplay experience.