Hi, Denarr.
I see you've visited the school of oneupmanship at least once. Here's my response:
Moonsinger's How to use artillery effectively... is not an exploit, it is a strategy. If every strategy that exploits the AI's lack of willingness to do the same is cancelled, you might as well just automate the entire game, and not be allowed to make any choices about what to do or where to do it.
You don't want to use the "exploit", fine. Don't go ruining the game for others, just because you disapprove of certain tactics. This sort of thinking could cause the ability to save games to disappear because of people reloading the game to get past an error in judgement, or a case of bad luck.
Whoa-hoh, hold the phone. Who was the guy that told you that I'm here to ruin Civ4?
Exploit, strategy, call it what you want. This fact remains: Moonsinger's warrior settlers can be used in
multiplayer games. Let me spell out an example, so there's no confusion.
You have played a PBEM with three friends over a period of four months. You have enjoyed yourself thoroughly all this time, when your rival friend pulls a warrior settler trick on you. You lose control of half your empire in the space of one turn, and there wasn't anything you could have done to prevent it. Retaliation? Since your military was demolished, that's impossible. You quit in frustration.
If I wanted to make you look bad, I could do it easily. I choose not to do that because I know we are working to the same goal, which is to make Civ4 the best turn-based strategy game that it can be. We're on the same side, so there's no need to put a dunce cap on your friend.
Of course, I realize that some people live to make others seem stupid. I can play that game too.
If you want to have access to other programs other than Civ, start a program before starting Civ, and then hit [Alt] + [Tab] to switch between them.
I use a text file to keep track of things to monitor, and have handy tables available for reference while playing. If I choose to activate another program, all I have to do is hit the Windows Icon key, and activate the program, using [Alt] + [Tab] to switch between them. No need to add to the size of the Civ game to do the same thing.
I know very well about Alt + Tab, and I use it when playing Civ3 every time. However, I like the convenience that a large monitor affords, being able to see all my open applications without wasting keystrokes. What's the use of having a high-res monitor when you're forced into 1024x768? Many existing PC games have a windowed mode. Civ4 should have it too.
Tweaking the AI is something that is always a part of a sequel, but if you're talking about making even the easy mode more challenging, then that would deter new players from playing the game, and those who bought the new game would discourage others from buying the game, reducing the amount of money that Firaxis would make, which would subsequently reduce the amount of money invested in further sequels while driving the price of said sequels higher, making these games hader to turn a profit from due to loss of customers that couldn't afford the higher priced games.
I'm
not saying "make even the easy mode more challenging", far from it. Let me rephrase my statement:
There are eight gradations of difficulty in C3C (Chieftain, Warlord, etc.) and all of them rely on handicapping your tribe and your rival AIs' tribes. Personally, I hate handicaps in all forms, but it's a necessary evil in a popular game like Civ. I would prefer cogitating handicaps for the AI instead of handicaps in terms of production, research, starting position, starting units, etc.
I envision Civ4 having AI so flexible, you can tweak your rivals' stupidity or intelligence in game setup. Of course, that's only a dream. :shakehead (Now I will use a word that I hate seeing in this forum, but there's no better word...
) A more
realistic vision would have difficulty defined as a rational handicap applied to your AI rivals. Higher difficulty makes your rivals smarter, while lower difficulty makes them stupider. IOW, difficulty is directly proportional to your rivals' intelligence. Five gradations, eight gradations, any quantity is okay with me.
There, I hope that misunderstanding is done.
I don't like having to refer to a separate screen each turn to see what the deal is with each civ, though. I find it far more convenient to click through the foreign advisor's comments, when confronting a rival in the negotiation screen, than to log out of the negotian screen, dig up the foreign advisor, read the data, log out of the foreign advisor, go back to negotiation, and try to remember the reason I checked with the advisor in the first place long enough to conduct the negotiation to a conclusion.
Plus the fact that when your rival contacts you, you can't access the foreign advisor at all and are force to rely on your memory to remember what the heck is going on with this particular rival and what you have going on with other rivals that may effect your decisions with the rival that has just contacted you.
Another misunderstanding. That's the trouble with being brief in a forum. Of course, making long posts like this one isn't good either.
But you wanted to know what I was thinking.
The "useful facts" in Civ3 that can only be found in the negotiation screen are threefold: gold in rival's treasury, tradable techs, and quantity of rival's cities. I like to know all these facts before I
initiate negotiations. If the Foreign Advisor offered up this information with a single mouse click, I would be very happy. I don't mind repeatedly clicking the Civ3 negotiation screen half as much when my rival comes to me with a deal.
Gathering simple facts like the three listed ones is a diplomat's job, an advisor's job. I want unnecessary clicking to be a thing of past Civ games. Interface should be intuitive, and this idea helps make that dream possible.
Thanks for your honest criticism, Denarr.
I hope you more clearly understand my point of view now.
School of oneupmanship... 
